NBC Daytime

[kalbir]

I always point out that Days is such an interesting case in soap history. It started as a Bill Bell show, then it became the supercouple show, and then Reilly sci-fi show.

Unfortunately I was not alive for the Bill Bell years of Days, so for my generation Days is best known for the supercouple years and Reilly years.

Edited Friday at 11:04 PM by kalbir

[watson71]

The problem that P&G and NBC had with AW is that they never let an executive producer or headwriter stay in their position long enough to raise the ratings in the 1980-90s - the exception being Michael Laibson and Donna Swajeski.  When the ratings did not immediately rise, P&G and NBC would replace them. In the last five years the show had 5 executive producers- Terri Guarnieri, John Valente, Jill Farren Phelps, Charlotte Savitz, and Christopher Goutman.

I do think that P&G and NBC still had some faith in AW as far as 1992- when they gave AW the primetime special before the Daytime Emmys.  There was a good faith effort to get people to watch AW with the special.

[Contessa Donatella]

I know that this is the NBC topic but if you look at the exec turnover on 3 P&G soaps in NY - AW, ATWT & GL - it is the same basic chaos of changing execs too fast & too often for all of them. 1995 P&G literally played musical chairs with the EP position only there were 4 execs involved so one left the employ of P&G but the other 3 each moved over one soap. And in early 1993 when Santa Barbara ended the Dobsons were set to HW AW. The tentative agreement they had with P&G was blocked by NBC who by that time apparently wanted that timeslot for another show that they owned.