NBC Daytime

[j swift]

Is that what happened in San Francisco?

[Chris B]

 I love the idea of GL's Peapack reboot, but they should've put an EP in place with experience with the format. The camera work and music was just dreadful. Also, there would be random scenes of people standing in the woods and on the side of the road. It was like they felt it was so special being outside but didn't understand how to make sense of it and tell a compelling story.

I also wonder why no US soap builds a standing outside set. That's why the UK soaps are able to seamlessly film outdoors because they have outdoor town square type sets they can regularly use. 

[te.]

Well, Days did have Salem Place (which was a lot smaller than it looked, but clearly effective). But realistically it's just cost I'd assume - outside take up more space that could be used for other things, plus I remember daytime soap fans bizarrely complaining that Sunset Beach didn't look enough like a soap (!). 

[Paul Raven]

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1955 NBC Television

[Paul Raven]

From the Jan 89 Affilliate meeting

In a meeting with representatives of affiliated stations, NBC executives pushed the network's upcoming Generations serial drama and spoke extensively about other programing in 1989. Among the announcements were that the network plans a March test of a daytime talk show starring Rona Barrett, and that it is developing, for a summer debut, a magazine show to be supervised by the news division that would probably include "dramatic re- creations." Additionally, NBC -TV Network President Pier Mapes reviewed the network's continued strong ratings performance, but he balanced his positive appraisal against inroads made by broadcast and cable competitors into the three major networks' share. Mapes also announced what he said would be a first step in improved communications between the network and its affiliates, the videocassette distribution of a speech made by NBC President Bob Wright.

Generations, the half -hour daytime drama debuting March 27, was the major subject of programing at the meeting. Mapes, who started the meeting with a warning that competitors to the three major networks "are nibbling away at us," told the affiliates: "We have to have clearances on Generations." Vice president, daytime programs, Brian Frons presented the show, which features black and white "core" families, as a way for the network to gain a bigger black audience in daytime, which he said represents a disproportionately large segment of that daypart's audience. If NBC had "parity" with the other networks in black audience, he said, NBC would win the daytime daypart. If Generations performs well, Frons said, it is possible the show will be expanded from its half -hour length (double fed at noon and 12:30 pm) to one hour. However, he said, NBC has no "foreseeable" plans to recapture the half hour in daytime that affiliates are scheduled to gain when the program premieres. To help launch the show, Frons said, NBC has budgeted $1 million for print promotion. To promote the show at NATPE, the show's creator, Sally Sussman, made an appearance, along with four of the show's stars.

Another daytime show appearing in March will be a test run of a half -hour strip featuring Rona Barrett chatting with three guests a day over a morning meal at her home. Scheduled to preempt Sale of the Century for the weeks of March 6 and March 13, the show will be brought back in the third quarter of 1989. if successful, Frons said. In another move to improve NBC's daytime performance, Frons said the company is adding $1 million to the annual casting budget of Santa Barbara.

*the show titled 'At Rona's' was a flop and never came back.