ABC Daytime

[danfling]

There are places here to post about both NBC Daytime and CBS Daytime.    Therefore, let us begin one concerning ABC Daytime!

 

I twant to say that ABC was (for me to see) the first network to include daytime performers as celebrities on game shows.

 

The first one that I remember seeing is Stephanie Braxton from All My Children (Tara #2) on The ... Pryamid.    Later, Susan Lucci (Erica), John Danielle (Frank) and Candice Earley (Donna #2) appeared on the same show.    I am sure that there were more that I cannot remember.   (I do remember that Meg Bennett from Love of Life also appeared.)

ABC's Family Fued seemed to be the show that invited daytime teams from the soap operas, and all five of the serials airing on ABC particpated.

Some daytime performers may have appeared on game shows prior to Stephanie Braxton, but I am not aware of these appearences.   Please share here if there were earlier ones!

[Paul Raven]

Although General Hospital grabbed #1 spot and got most of the attention, ABC also had All My Children and One Life to Live in good shape storywise. So the overall afternoon line up was strong, and the contributions  of those other two shows should not be underestimated.

Whereas, later when Days of Our Lives was getting a lot of hype in the mid 80's with Bo/Hope and Patch/Kayla neither Another World or Santa Barbara were in strong shape ratings or story wise to support Days.

[kalbir]

General Hospital became a pop culture phenomenon because of Luke/Laura and starting the whole action/adventure and supercouple crazes. 

Susan Lucci transcended soaps and became known in pop culture. Even people who never watched All My Children or soaps at all know who Susan Lucci is. It's quite fitting that she is the only Daytime Emmy acting winner whose win got a People cover story.

[j swift]

TIL, in 1981 ABC Daytime was the most profitable division of the network, out preforming both primetime, news, and sports.  Obviously, it did not bring in the most advertising income, but it was the most profitable.

I was watching one of my favorite nostalgic playlists on YouTube, the fall network promos by year, and from the 80s through the late 90s, there were soap actors included every year, usually Lucci, but also Jack Wagner and Finola Hughes were shown.

Edited August 10, 2023 by j swift

[GLATWT88]

I wonder how EON would have faired if given a fair shot by affiliates. Considering how successful the rest of the ABC lineup was and GH being it's lead-in, it had all the makings of being a success. I know on the west coast, it apparently aired at noon, so did not have the same advantage. Unfortunately with many networks choosing to preempt, it just never had a chance. The timeslot move on CBS really did some damage, but IMO it could have been saved at ABC.

I wonder how EON and Capitol (CBS) would have done in the 90s considering the rise of procedural dramas in primetime since then. Would have been interesting to see what direction EON would have taken.

[Paul Raven]

Edge was getter better ratings than all of NBC soaps at one point. That was with only 81% coverage as compared to Days for example that had 99%.

I remember reading that in a lot of cities where Edge aired at 4pm it was doing well.

But getting stations to carry it was the ongoing problem. Did it air in NY at 4pm up until cancellation?

[GLATWT88]

NY aired it at 4 until the end of its run. 

[Paul Raven]

Thanks. Wonder how it was rating...

[j swift]

EON aired here in Los Angeles at 3pm (soaps tend to air an hour earlier in this market than on the East Coast).  At the time, it seemed like a clear case of the affiliate wanting to expand local programming.  KABC had a successful history of daytime talkshows, including Regis's original morning show AMLA, and there was an afternoon talkshow called 330, that it would seem they would want to expand to an hour.  They were also one of the first to have multi-hour afternoon newscasts.  San Francisco and Seattle also had popular afternoon talkshows which aired after EON, and would benefit from expansion.   So, I would guess that there was a lot of pressure to get that time back to the affiliates.

The programming issue that I don't recall from my youth, but still strikes me as odd, was the 45-minute soap opera!  Radio was built on 15 minute time periods, but TV was usually 30 or 60-minute episodes by the time that the ABC soaps went to 45 minutes.  I get it that back to back they lasted for 90 minutes, but it seems foreign.  Although, today on streaming it is not unusual for DAYS to range anywhere from 42 to 47 minutes per episode, so it probably wouldn't seem as weird to this generation.

[gimmetoo]

ABC Daytime clearly benefitted from the efforts of a savvy network marketing team.  To this day, I can still so clearly hear the "Loooove in the Af-Ter-Noon..." lead in to the ABC Daytime commercials.  And as a kid I was ridiculously enthralled by those Daytime Dilemma challenges.

The ABC actors were always willing to spend their weekends with Joyce Becker meeting fans at mall appearances and softball games in the local markets.  Any idea how much the actors got paid for those ?  Those appearances were total fuel for soap fever.

[Paul Raven]

The 45 min format was unique but ABC figured if you were watching OLTL then you's stay with GH because AW was already started. Mmmm....not sure how convinced I am but ABC stuck with it till the 60 min expansion. 

it would be interesting to see how the ratings were at that time.

[Jagger1966]

Here in Michigan our Detroit affiliate aired Edge Of Night at 10:30 in the morning right up until the final episode.  I don't know how it did in the ratings but I have to imagine it would have done better had it followed General Hospital.

In the Jeff Giles book Llanview in the Afternoon, Barbara Treutelaar who played Didi on One Life To Live said that they were paid $1000 and put up first class in hotels for those mall appearances.

[danfling]

ABC began the FYI five-minute program.    (maybe it was less than five minutes)

The two lowest rated programs on the ABC Daytime schedule.   Instead of giving the role of host to Hal Lindon (who was a daytime veteran having appeared on Search for Tomorrow and who was then starring on Barney Miller), the network should have named Joel Crothers or Forrest Compton as the host.

They would have been promoting The Edge of Night, the show that the network wanted to succeed and could have used the boost.

[kalbir]

ABC had successful daytime and primetime runs overlapping in the early 1980s but the paths diverged by the middle of the decade. ABC was killing it in daytime in the early 1980s thanks to General Hospital massive rise in the late 1970s but started losing its dominance in the middle of the decade, and General Hospital was knocked out of #1 by the end of the decade. ABC primetime was doing well in the early 1980s, became a mess in the middle of the decade, and would rebound by the end of the decade.

[GLATWT88]

Could a 4th hour of soaps been successful on ABC? After acquiring Edge and expanding three soaps, ABC had a four hour block of soaps that consisted of RH, AMC, OLTL, GH, and EON. NBC would later have a similar situation after picking up SFT. Neither network seemed to make these 4 hour blocks work. While NBC was in terrible shape, ABC soap trio was booming. RH and EON were performing reasonably for a time considering clearance. Could ABC have done more to maintain this fourth hour? It held on to the 12:30 slot for a while but never really seemed to make it work.