SOD is ending it's weekly print edition

[dragonflies]

 

 

[Soapsuds]

From 1.5 million to 40 k .....yikes!!

[dragonflies]

Have you seen the price? it's OUTRAGEOUS. 80 bucks a YEAR, $8 an issue. RIDICULOUS

[YRfan23]

End of an era..

[lucaslesann23]

They needed to step up their digital game and that seems to be the plan

[Soapsuds]

The last SOW I bought was in 1997. The last SOD I bought was around 1991.

I thought they were already expensive back then...lol

[lucaslesann23]

To be clear, the weekly digital SOD mag will go on. It’s the weekly print version that’s being cancelled.

[dragonflies]

Just last year I got a year of SOD for $40 for the year on Amazon. I wondered what was up when Amazon got out of the selling of ALL magazines

Someone said if one goes the other goes, cause aren't they the same just different formats?

[soapfan770]

Sad for sure, a definitive sign of the times. I was a subscriber from 1995-2004 and then….

 

 

 

LOL even 20 years ago the bottom fell out and the prices skyrocketed lol, which is when I cancelled my subscription. 
 

And for whatever reason, SOD had a fantastic early online presence there from 1996-2000ish, then disappeared for like two years LMAO and then their online presence after that was always terrible…”read more in the latest issue!” Major yikes!

SOD’s content stopped being fun. SOD awards were deliberately rigged and then stopped being held. Thumbs up/down columns, top ten lists, the joke lists, and in depth articles and analysis on shows current and historical storylines became non existent. Fan mail became censored. Softball Interviews became softer than Downy sheets. Carolyn Hinsey became very offensive and very obnoxious. Every other weekly cover became “The Plan to save DAYS!” VCR/DVR alerts became snooze alerts. And ratings boxes were increasingly less exciting and became obscured. 
 

At least SOD has never gone the SPW route and tried to cover American Idol and America’s Got Talent for “soapy” content but I digress. I’ve gotten my soap News off the web from SON and other sites for years now rather than SOD. 

[j swift]

So many great memories attached to that magazine.  I am slightly sad to see it go.

You have to hand it to them, they survived as a digest of the weekly plots even after the advent of VCRs, DVRs, and streaming.  You certainly couldn't pitch it as a viable venture today.

But, who will answer those age-old questions like was Phyllis Diller the mother of Susan Lucci?

Edited October 27, 2023 by j swift

[Soapsuds]

Of course their awards were rigged. Days won every year. No way...

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Same about getting my soap news online and ratings. Not only did I not buy them but I stopped reading them at stores.

[Paul Raven]

It takes about 10 minutes to flick through an issue. Most of the info is old news by the time the issue comes out.

The occasional interview can be of interest but otherwise...

I'm surprised they didn't lean in more to the archives and republish old articles/interviews. Maybe have a wrap section each issue eg Lucci through the years with old photos/interviews or Days in the 80's etc

And when The Doctors turned up on Retro publish the synopses once the show got to 1975.

They needed to provide some point of difference.

And some of those photo shopped covers...

[Contessa Donatella]

That's what I was gonna say! Also I told a former Editor just last weekend that the newstand price is $8 & she freaked. Still going to do 4 issues a year, specials. 

[lucaslesann23]

Doesn't help they did nothing about piracy one fan bought it and shared it. I guess not much you could do though, you could request it be taken down but everyone's already read it.

[j swift]

Rather than kick a horse when it's down, I want to recall when it was fun.  Like when they actually had in-house photographers, and art directors, who gave us iconic images

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I remember going to the grocery every Tuesday and picking up a copy, a bag of jellybeans, and that was an amazing evening of entertainment.  I'm sad for those too young to remember when it went from bi-monthly to weekly, or when the comings and goings section went from the middle of the magazine to front. The ridiculous questions in the back.  Their relentless dragging of the daytime emmys.  The way that the black and white photos were sometimes printed slightly off center.  And the detailed descriptions of the dialogue and costumes when actual people wrote the synopses. 

There's time enough for Monday morning quarterbacking about what went wrong, I want to celebrate the memory of what it meant to us as a community.

Edited October 27, 2023 by j swift