NBC Daytime

[Contessa Donatella]

Goodness, SB won Best Show Emmys 3 times & NBC only carried it for 9 years. I definitely think 8 years was reasonable for PSSN. I'm not sure if they promoted it well & I'm not sure they really appreciated the viewers they had ... but you could say that about NBC & any soap they ever had!

[GLATWT88]

I think it stayed on as long as it did, because NBC knew that once Passions was cancelled they weren't replacing it with another soap and that would leave Days alone while the other two networks still had a pretty full lineup. Whether or not NBC cared, I'm not sure. I think it outperforming Sunset Beach and showing growth initially was pleasing to NBC, but it never really left the bottom. 

[Contessa Donatella]

And, it never met their probably totally unrealistic expectations. In my opinion, the NBC execs at the time were not very knowledgeable about soaps. They simply thought Jim Reilly was a storytelling genius & they thought he would bring high ratings from the get-go rather than having to grow an audience. And, genius notwithstanding, soaps have to grow their audience. 

[te.]

Yeah, that's definitively a part of it, but to Passions' credit, it did grow in the first few years and showed promise, which is more than most soaps do (SuBe just fell and fell and fell... no matter how many stunts they tried); it just couldn't sustain it and even Passions fans seems to acknowledge that JER went completely off his rocker.

 

With that said, isn't there some sort of Passions convention going on occasionally? So those young fans did grow up and continue being fans of their soaps in a real life way (sort of like a lesser Dark Shadows I suppose). I guess the fantasy element helps it stand out among the regular soaps.

[Contessa Donatella]

What's that about? What happened? 

[danfling]

I want to ask about the pilot of Mary Worth.    For some reason, I am thinking that it was submitted to NBC, although I may be wrong.

Was this an attempt by the NBC network to own a serial, or did another company organize and produce this pilot (which starred Nancy Wickwire).

If this should not be on the NBC page, please forgive me!

[Paul Raven]

More on the Mary Worth pilot, from the March 1972 Daytime TV.

Filmed in New York on November 29 and 30. Starring, as already mentioned, Nancy Wickwire and Rita McLaughlin, as well as Larry Kert, who had never done a soap but was on Broadway (Company) and a lot of TV, and Noel Craig, a stage actor who was Herbie Vail on Secret Storm in 1967.

Variety Nov 24th 1971

Production of 'Mary Worth' skedded to start in late November in preparation for a January availability. Roger Ailes, former producer of the "Mike Douglas Show," will be exec producer, with Vincent Scarza signed to direct.

Variety June 27th 1973

A syndicated soap opera is in the offing, according to Roger Ailes & Associates, which reports, its "Mary Worth" series has been sold in 20 markets

They needed way more than 20 stations to get the show off the ground.

 

April 1972 Daytime TV

 

Sam Hall (Grayson Hall's husband), who co-wrote the Dark Shadows series and movies, wrote the script for the projected daytime serial based on the comic strip, Mary Worth, The cast of the serial pilot film consists of Larry Kert, Nancy Wickwire, Rita McLaughlin, Shane Nickerson, Robert Pickering, Noel Craig. Nancy Wickwire will play Mary Worth

 

 

Edited August 25, 2023 by Paul Raven

[danfling]

Robert Pickering and Shane Nickerson had both appeared on The Guiding Light.

Shane Nickerson played Billy Fletcher (I think that Billy had been adopted by Johnny.).

Robert Pickering played Mike Bauer prior to being replaced by Don Stewart.   He was also on the serial Days of Our Lives.

 

Thank you for this information on the cast, writer and producer!

[j swift]

Imagine if Roger Ailes had spent the last 50 years producing a soap, rather than harassing female "talent" at Fox News how the world would have been different....

[slick jones]

Larry Kert did do a soap later in his career.  He was on OLTL in 1982 as an actor (Mike Keegan) playing the murder victim (Albert Hatchfield).

[Soaplovers]

I remember in the late 80s, NBC daytime started to regain ratings ground...and one of the strategies used was appealing to the 20 and 30 something viewer figuring they were less likely to be attached to a particular network of soaps.

It did kind of work...but more women were working and cable was becoming more dominant by the late 80s...and NBC was never patient nor understanding of the soap opera concept of slow and steady wins the race.

Only when Days had a consistent rebirth ratings wise in the mid 90s did NBC try again to nurture a viable daytime schedule.  Once AW and SunBeach got axed in 1999...was the writing on the wall that NBC had thrown in the towel.

[Paul Raven]

August 85

At NBC Entertainment, Brian Frons, vice president of daytime programs, said that producers of the third -placed network's shows have changed their emphasis, with action and adventure being accented to bring in younger audiences. NBC has five shows in development for the 10 -11 a.m. NYT hour on its schedule. Frons also said NBC is "taking a hard look" at the future of Search for Tomorrow (12:30 -1 p.m. NYT). In all, he said, bringing NBC back in ratings will require "drastic improvements" from 12 :30 to 4 p.m. "That's where the money is," he said in reference to advertising dollars, "and that's where there's softness in the competition."

Such softness, he said, was a reference to the effect a hit such as ABC's General Hospital could have on a daypart that is not prone to change easily. NBC has reported that it is the only network that gained female viewers 18 years of age and older from Oct. 1, 1984, to May 24, 1985, going from 3.59 million during the same period a year ago to 3.72 million this year, a gain of 4 %. For the same period, CBS slipped from 5.16 million to 4.96 million, a decline of 9%, and ABC from 5.07 million to 4.69 million, a decline of 7%.

Frons said that the strength of NBC's schedule was in its two "powerhouses" - Wheel of Fortune (11 -11:30 a.m. NYT) and Days of Our Lives (1 -2 p.m. NYT) -adding that the success of the schedule depends on Days: "Whither goes Days goes the afternoon lineup." As for the progress of Santa Barbara, which finds itself in a tough position (3-4 p.m. NYT) opposite General Hospital on ABC and Guiding Light on CBS, Frons reiterated NBC Chairman Grant Tinker's willingness to give the show a two -year trial.

[j swift]

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In the venn diagram of these two fandoms, name any other group that fits between them

[Contessa Donatella]

AW fans who are also GL fans. 

AW fans who are also SB fans. 

AW fans who are also PC fans.

AW fans who are also OLTL fans. (This came from people who found OLTL at 2 once AW was canceled.) 

DAYS fans who are also GH fans. 

Going by fans online who self-report and/or who are active in different topics, I find there to be a great many where these are in with Venn. 

And, there's another obvious group: AW, DAYS, GEN & SB. When we first got the earliest VCRs that was the NBC lineup, well, beginning with GEN, then DAYS, then AW & finally SB. People who taped the whole day were prevalent online.

[j swift]

I should probably be less obtuse if I expect a straight answer.

To me, there are very few eras of DAYS that seems like it would appeal to a fan of AW.

Even before the ABC soaps were established as existing in the same fictional universe, they were marketed toward an identifiable audience.  Similarly, although the P&G and Bell soaps differed in style, it was easy to understand how a 1983 Y&R fan who watched the introduction of teen model Cricket might enjoy that period of GL's four musketeers.

However, aside from times when AW was forced to shoehorn in more action orientated plots, it seems like there was very little carryover for a DAYS fan to enjoy at contemporaneous eras of AW.  For example, does a 1985 fan watching The Dragon action/romance plot with Kim and Shane, also enjoy the mysterious character-driven origins of the Donna Love's twins plot line? Or in 1978 when DAYS Mike is melodramatically marrying a dying Margo does that same demographic want to watch the mature repartee of Iris and Brian? 

It just doesn't feel like there was anything characteristic of those two NBC soaps that would attract a devoted fandom to the entire lineup.

Edited August 31, 2023 by j swift