NBC Daytime

[Contessa Donatella]

I gave you a straight answer. 

I've known many fans who have very diverse favorites. Some of the examples I cited illustrate that, 

 

 

Edited August 31, 2023 by Donna L. Bridges

[GLATWT88]

I totally get what you're saying, but your generalization here makes it seems like one's tastes/preferences are isolated to very specific "flavors" - while the truth is we can like things that might seem as though they are opposites. Some who likes trashy reality TV shows can similarly like hard hitting investigative documentaries. Where I do agree with you is branding and identity...ABC soaps while all different did seem to be geared towards similar audiences. They had elements that carried over to each which gave them a sense of familiarity to anyone who watched the others - especially the trifecta of AMC/OLTL/GH. I also agree that while the CBS soaps exhibited this to a lesser degree, it was still there. That's why I could easily picture someone watching the entire CBS soap lineup or the entire ABC lineup...while the NBC one just didn't feel like it would appeal to the same audiences. Clealry there were many who enjoyed all of them, but on the surface they were catering to very different types of viewers as you mentioned.

The issue really stems from NBC not having any long running soap debuts since the 70s. SB and Passions were the longest running new soaps on NBC from 1970s until its demise and neither lasted a decade. It is difficult to build a brand identity this way. Meanwhile the trifecta had been around since AMC's debut and had all that time to figure it out. It also helped that they were ABC's soaps. Meanwhile ATWT and GL had been around forever and YR since the early 70s. 

Had NBC expanded the Doctors to an hour, had Days and AW follow and potentially allowed one of the fourth soaps - Somerset most likely establish itself - it may have been able to solve this long identity crisis. A crisis which was brought on in large part to it never finding its place in daytime. Apart from a bit of success in the 70s, it began to fall apart and was always looking for something new or different to solve its daytime ratings.  

[kalbir]

I would think supercouple era Days and Santa Barbara would have appealed to the same audience.

[Contessa Donatella]

Apparently there is resistance to believing it but having lived it & known many fans online there was plenty of network defined fans where AW & DAYS were the big thing. Now it changed & I can tell you when. The first demonic possession storyline on DAYS, tons of those people online gave up DAYS when Reilly began telling DevilDoc 1.0. 

[j swift]

I hadn't considered that issue, and I think that is very astute.

DAYS and AW were diverse, but they needed a linking variable.  SB was thematically the best fit between those two soaps.  Passions seems too akin to DAYS, and all the AW spin-offs were too closely tied to that audience.   But, if any of those soaps had lasting power, they could've shaped the characteristics of the daytime lineup.

[GLATWT88]

Yes for sure, but I don't know if the entire lineup was ever as cohesive as say ABC's. 

[chrisml]

My family watched AW for the most part continuously up until the JFP era. Santa Barbara was watched from just after Eden's rape to around the time the Dobsons came back and then no one really watched after that (the family's allegiance turned to live viewings of GL rather than recordings). DOOL was another one that my family dipped in and out of. I remember my grandparents upset about Carly being buried, but I think they stopped watching after that. My mother never really watched DOOL and my relationship with the show was iffy too. I don't remember a significant time where 2 or three of the shows were watched at any given time. 

[Contessa Donatella]

No, I think that is singular & distinct to ABC. CBS had a two tiered lineup: Bell empire & Chantilly soaps, which is what many people used to call ATWT/GL. And, NBC at best had clumps of different but complimentary & at worst were just all over the place. And, NBC hated that ABC owned their soaps & that they had that unity to their lineup. I don't know that CBS hated it, too, but I wouldn't be surprised. I believe early on that NBC wanted The Doctors & DAYS to be more like AW. Later that changed, with the Reilly phenomenon & they wanted everyone to be like him. 

[Contessa Donatella]

A bit of clarification about network expansion that came up in CBS Daytime ... Here Paul is quoting Harding Lemay's book EIGHT YEARS IN ANOTHER WORLD. 

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So, the idea to expand from 30 minutes to an hour came from Pete Lemay & once NBC was on board Lin Bolen spearheaded the drive to make it so. 

[ClassicsSoapFan]

I am watching NBC's The Doctors on the It's Real good TV app. Never watched it the first time because we were CBS people. Rita Lakin is a great writer. She was joined by Rick Edelstein. I just noticed she is gone and he is solo. I hope the quality keeps up.

I wish Rita had written some of my CBS favorites.

[robbwolff]

Rick does a good job though his tenure is short. I think he's only there for about six months and is then replaced by Ira Avery. I adored Rita's writing!

[danfling]

Rick Edelstein and Margaret DePriest had worked together over at CBS on The Edge of Night.    She was an actress (playing Abby Cameron #1) and later a writer.

I think that he is responsable for her movement to The Doctors.    She originally played a social worker and then she became the writer for The Doctors.

She later co-created and co-wrote (with Lou Shoberg, who had been the head writer of The Edge of Night when she was a writer for that show) Where the Heart Is.   (They were later replaced by Pat Falken Smith.)

I am a retired English teacher, and I hope that third paragraph did not include too many run-on sentences!

 

[Contessa Donatella]

Then Margaret DePriest was second in command under Pat Falken Smith at DAYS where she created Calliope Jones after the performance image of Cyndi Lauper's #2 hit "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun"! When PFS left to return to GH, MDP was HW briefly alone & then together co-HW with Shari Anderson. That was 1984-1985-1986. 

In 1996 MDP was still HWing & with JFP & Susan D. Lee at AW she infamously killed Frankie Frame in the most brutal gruesome onscreen death ever seen. 

Dan you can use Grammarly or what I use is LT Grammar Checker & it will recommend things to you! It fairly often tells me how many words I have just put into one sentence & maybe do I want to rewrite? 

[Contessa Donatella]

Miss Susan, B&W, NBC, 3/12/1951-12/28/1951 This was about a wheelchair bound heroine named Susan & played by an actual paraplegic, Susan Peters, was out of Philadelphia. 

I did not know about any soap originating anywhere but Chicago, NY & California. 

Were there any other oddballs? 

[danfling]

NBC's First Love was also broadcast from a department store in Philadelphia.

Three of the stars were Val Dufour, Rosemary Prinz and (I think) Patricia Barry.

 

Other serials which were produced somewhere other than New York, Chicago or California include:

Moment of Truth (NBC)

High Hopes (syndicated)

Strange Paradise (syndicated)

The Catlins (syndicated)

Another Life (CBN)

Edited September 11, 2023 by danfling