The niche potential for streaming classic soaps

[Faulkner]

I do wonder about the primetime soap holdouts (or in this case, holdout). Dallas, Dynasty, Falcon Crest, Melrose Place, Beverly Hills 90210, The O.C., and even Titans are all streaming but no Knots, for instance. And that’s the show I’d want to watch the most of all of the above,

[Contessa Donatella]

It is on the top 10 most wanted list, not of soaps, of shows, period! It & China Beach & Moonlighting are said to be held up over .... da dum ... music rights. 

[Faulkner]

Moonlighting is in the works, according to Glenn Gordon Caron. But word was that even Family (the Sada Thompson/Meredith Baxter/Kristy McNichol series) is available on Tubi, although I can’t seem to find it via my mobile. I’d love to see Sisters and Herskovitz/Zwick series other than My So-Called Life streaming. Thirtysomething was on Hulu for a while. 

[te.]

Well according to @Errol they're working on it - but lots of episodes and I'm sure they're either looking to license or replace some of the music. I assume they also are looking if they can sell it somewhere (ie IMDBTV or whatever it's called now) or put it on their own platforms.

[j swift]

Beyond the financial constraints that inhibit streaming serialized dramas, we should also consider the creative issues.  For me, one of the reasons that repeats of prime time dramas never worked in syndication is that it is like watching someone slowly tell a joke when you already know the punchline. 

Please register in order to view this content

 

Edited September 16, 2023 by j swift

[Faulkner]

Knots is also a very slow burn at the beginning, even though its first seasons were more episodic, so it would be easy for someone to start it and abandon it. But so many of its heavily serialized peers are now streaming, so I wonder.

[Contessa Donatella]

Yes, it & KL are both in the works supposedly. And, I would enjoy Sisters again and also a Sela Ward that is Herskovitz/Zwick also, I think, is Once & Again, which I would definitely re-watch. 

Just checked Family for you on JustWatch.com & it says it is not available for streaming at this time but you can put your name in there to be notified if its status changes! JustWatch is a great website to tuck away in your brain. So, anyway, info on Family must have been a rumor. Great show! 

Edited September 16, 2023 by Donna L. Bridges
more info

[dragonflies]

I don't think BOLD and BEAUTIFUL is doing well on PLUTO either given they shoved it to the wee hours of the morning and it's only like 2 hours a day of the show

[Faulkner]

For daytime soaps, it’s kinda up to us to preserve the genre. Can’t hope for the deep pockets to do anything. A small group of dedicated fans has done a lot to make material available on the biggest “streaming service” of them all: YouTube.

Like everyone, I’d like more episodes to be unearthed and uploaded to different places (hopefully with the owners preserving copies in the event of inevitable purges), but there’s already more material up from the soaps than I can watch alongside other life obligations and the gazillion movies and TV series I still want to see. More material than I’d want to watch if I’m being honest. There’s just not enough hours in the day.

Soaps have been excellent at times, but except for periods when these were exceptional (and perhaps even then in a few cases), there’s a lot of filler and repetition, as they were crafted for homemakers whose attention was divided. The hourlong push only made things worse. Ambient TV is certainty a thing and primetime shows are padded, but they are relatively low-commitment. Soaps feel like overwhelming projects to get into UNLESS you have a really compelling reason to dip into them, like family members or peers watching. (Game of Thrones was dense but so many people were watching or had read the GRRM novels and others wanted to know what the hell they were talking about).

The stigmas of soaps have lessened but only the genre has been outright forgotten. “Oh that show’s still on?!?!” has become more a common refrain. When popular soap figures like Jackie Zeman pass away, you get a boost in conversation from nostalgic fans, but there is no connection between lapsed fans’ temporary chatter and the show as it’s existed for the 20-30 years. There’s no clamor to see how the show handles Bobbie. “Bobbie was still on GH?” would probably be most people’s first question. Understandably so: the shows have been garbage for a long time and they are literally all “filler,” scheduled to fill holes in daytime with a loyal yet aging viewership.

The soap I find most easily bingeable is The Edge of Night. It hits a sweet spot between plot-driven and forward momentum/suspense and a strong sense of who the characters are even without having watched, and the arcs feel very clear. It’s also somewhat “dark” and has a timeless feel, and it wasn’t super earnest or domestic. As we’ve said throughout the years, it’s ripe for a reboot. The IP means nothing to most youngish people but there will always be an audience for a solid crime drama. 

Edited September 16, 2023 by Faulkner

[Contessa Donatella]

Sharon Rose Gabet is on FB. She visits my forum. If anything comes up that she would want to see, I just tag her & she shows up immediately. I am of the impression that she is more active elsewhere, on FB but EON dedicated instead of all soaps. I believe she regularly gets together with fans & they have watch parties & access to special videos. 

You know she played Brittany on AW & she shot Peter & went on trial for it & it was when they did the gimmick of having the audience be the jury. They didn't have any video to watch. They found her guilty. Well, we came up with a YouTube video that clearly showed self defense & she was so funny because she was so tickled that she was finally vindicated! She had maintained the whole time that it was self defense! 

This summer Stephen King tweeted how & where could he watch EON. He seemed flabbergasted that he could not. Although we told him about YouTube but he had something more official in mind. 

[All My Shadows]

Family was definitely on Tubi for quite a while, but I noticed maybe two months ago that it is no longer available. I actually discovered its absence because I'd noticed they'd added Eight is Enough. I've always seen the two as companion series (one more serious, the other more silly ahem sillier), so I assumed Family was still on, then I searched for it, and it was gone. Hopefully it pops up again somewhere.

Re: soaps streaming. We really have been having some variation of this conversation for a decade now, and it's sad. Daytime soaps were never made to be rerun. They were purposely designed to never be rerun - that's why they've always been on year-round. In fact, I'm pretty positive that, aside from Dark Shadows, not a single soap opera episode was rerun until the 80s.

The mere existence of SFT and EON reruns on USA Network years ago doesn't prove that soap reruns are viable. Anything else that stayed in syndication for as long as they did (4-5 years?) would be considered a flop in reruns. We point to it as a success because the bar is so low for daytime. The only long-term soap reruns in our country (again, DS aside) were broadcast by a niche network devoted to the genre that eventually dropped all the daytime reruns and still closed.

As time goes on, the "real" audience for these shows disappears more and more. We're all huge fans and relatively young, but we are so deep into the minority that sometimes I think we forget that we are not the average viewer.

[Contessa Donatella]

Oh, I see about Family. Thanks for the clarification. 

I've certainly been in conversations about it off & on of course, over many many years. It doesn't seem sad to me. As soon as VCRs came out in the early to mid 80s soap fans began curating soap collections. But just because people did not ever see a value to them long-term does not necessarily mean it must be so. 

And, for a great many years soaps have used flashbacks & that is a secondary use for clips from a show. 

I don't point to it as a success per se. I just list it as what it is, an example that happened. 

But, BET's rebroadcast of Generations is more in line with the streaming philosophy. And, that was the 90s & the 90s were not kind to soaps. 

Speak for yourself! 

Please register in order to view this content

Me, I'm old as dirt. But, we are no longer the goose that laid golden eggs, the cash cow that paid for primetime's experimentation. No, we are a niche market. However, there is more interest in serialized storytelling because so much of primetime is now serialized. Still, yes, you are correct that we are a minority, a marginalized group & as Faulkner pointed out & I became very aware of due to the WGA strikers unfamiliar with daytime, many people think soaps went off the air back when the last 4 actually did go off the air. The ATWT Endiversary is tomorrow. GL's is Monday. 13 & 14 yrs ago respectively. 

[Contessa Donatella]

Oh, btw, never watched it. Also skipped The Sopranos & James Cameron's Titanic. 

[Contessa Donatella]

So I got Toups to do me the favor of tweaking this topic title to what I should have named it in the first place. 

If people want to continue to discuss, we can. 

I started with Disney because they are the Mouse House & because they have their own streamer & Hulu. So, then 6 or 7 soaps is substantial! 

Very different but also very interesting is the official YT channel that B&B is doing. I'd love to know more about that situation & their philosophy & what they're after. 

I know that some people think it would be an enhancement to current soaps to have their vintage episodes on display. Other people think the exact opposite. If people could watch Reilly's DAYS why in hell would they watch Ron's?! Or if people could watch Riche/Labine GH, ... etc. It's an interesting question I think. 

[dragonflies]

I want Sisters on streaming so bad, I loved that show so much