ARTICLE: Daytime Broadcast Ratings for the Week of December 18-22, 2023

[Errol]

For the fourth consecutive week, and the fifth time overall this season, “General Hospital” attracted fewer than two million viewers during the week of December 18-22, 2023, according to the latest Nielsen figures available to Soap Opera Network. Note: Women 18-49 and 25-54 ratings were unavailable at press time.

“General Hospital” (1.915 million) was down by -12,000 viewers week-to-week, marking its fourth consecutive week in which the series has lost viewers. Among Households, the daytime drama series kept its 1.3 rating. 

A possible cause for the show’s decline in recent weeks could be attributed to a carriage dispute between TEGNA and DIRECTV, which began Thursday, November 30, and has resulted in the satellite provider losing access to 66 TEGNA-owned television stations across the United States. Thirteen of those stations are ABC affiliates, including WFAA in Dallas-Fort Worth, the fifth-ranked DMA (Designated Market Area). WFAA is the most watched station in the market and the highest-rated ABC affiliate overall that is not owned by The Walt Disney Company, parent of the ABC Television Network.

That said, TEGNA also owns 15 CBS stations and 22 NBC stations, and neither network is seeing noticeable declines among their daytime shows. In fact, “The Price is Right” (3.978 million / 4.497 million) saw hefty week-to-week gains as viewers headed into a long Holiday break and was the week’s big winner among Total Viewers.

Both half hours of the popular game show added +396,000 viewers on average compared to one week earlier, plus “The Young and the Restless” also saw week-to-week gains, adding +72,000 viewers over the week of December 11-15, 2023. Meanwhile, “NBC News Daily” brought in +75,000 additional viewers compared to last week.

“The Young and the Restless” and “The Bold and the Beautiful” continue to show improvement over their 2020 figures, with the former adding +149,000 viewers while the latter added +155,000 viewers. In fact, “The Bold and the Beautiful” is also up over its comparable performance during the same week in 2021, adding +35,000 viewers.

“The Talk” and “The View” aired amended repeats for the week and are excluded from the weekly rankings.

What follows is a breakdown of how the daytime broadcast shows performed during the week of December 18-22, 2023 in Women 18-49 Rating, Women 25-54 Rating, Households and Total Viewers, including a look at their comparable performance in 2022, 2021 and 2020, respectively. A closer look at the daytime soaps, including their daily performance breakdown in the demos, will be posted shortly.

Week Of December 18-22, 2023 Rankers

Households

Rank / Show / Network	This Week	Last Week	2022	2021	2020
1. The Price is Right 2 (CBS)	2.8	2.6	N/A*	2.9	3.2
2. The Price is Right 1 (CBS)	2.5	2.3	N/A*	2.6	2.9
3. The Young and the Restless (CBS)	2.2	2.1	N/A*	2.3	2.7
4. The Bold and the Beautiful (CBS)	1.8	1.9	N/A*	1.8	1.8
5. Let’s Make a Deal 2 (CBS)	1.7	1.7	N/A*	1.8	2.0
6. Let’s Make a Deal 1 (CBS)	1.4	1.4	N/A*	1.6	1.7
7. General Hospital (ABC)	1.3	1.3	N/A*	1.5	1.5
8. GMA3: What You Need to Know (ABC)	0.9	0.9	N/A*	1.0	1.2
9. NBC News Daily (NBC)	0.8	0.8	N/A*	1.2	1.2
NR. The View (ABC)	N/A*	1.5	N/A*	N/A	N/A
N/A. TODAY 3rd Hour (NBC)	N/A	1.4	N/A*	N/A	1.8
N/A. TODAY with Hoda & Jenna (NBC)	N/A	1.1	N/A*	N/A	1.3
NR. The Talk (CBS)	N/A*	0.9	N/A*	0.8	N/A

Source: Nielsen (Live+Same Day)

Total Viewers (In Millions)

Rank / Show / Network	This Week	Last Week	2022	2021	2020
1. The Price is Right 2 (CBS)	4,497	4,054	N/A*	4,743	4,989
2. The Price is Right 1 (CBS)	3,978	3,629	N/A*	4,229	4,414
3. The Young and the Restless (CBS)	3,241	3,169	N/A*	3,457	3,092
4. The Bold and the Beautiful (CBS)	2,759	2,782	N/A*	2,724	2,604
5. Let’s Make a Deal 2 (CBS)	2,610	2,609	N/A*	2,957	3,096
6. Let’s Make a Deal 1 (CBS)	2,197	2,228	N/A*	2,637	2,622
7. General Hospital (ABC)	1,915	1,927	N/A*	2,204	2,178
8. GMA3: What You Need to Know (ABC)	1,323	1,308	N/A*	1,590	1,700
9. NBC News Daily (NBC)	1,232	1,157	N/A*	1,809*	1,829*
NR. The View (ABC)	NR*	2,221	NR*	1,542	NR*
NA. TODAY 3rd Hour (NBC)	N/A	2,010	N/A*	N/A	N/A
NA. TODAY with Hoda & Jenna (NBC)	N/A	1,519	N/A*	N/A	N/A
NR. The Talk (CBS)	NR*	1,381	NR*	1,247	NR*

Source: Nielsen (Live+Same Day)

The numbers above are calculated using Live+Same Day viewing and DVR playback, defined as 3:00 a.m.-3:00 a.m. and are courtesy of Nielsen. Household ratings are the percentage of TV homes in the U.S. tuned into television, each of which represents 1,250,000 homes as of the 2023-2024 television season.

Note*: Officially, the demo ratings are sorted by the rounded figures released by Nielsen. “NBC News Daily” 2021 and 2020 figures are compared to the performance of “Days of our Lives,” which moved to Peacock exclusively beginning September 12, 2022.

“The Talk” and “The View” aired amended repeats. As a result, neither show was rated by Nielsen.

Year-to-year comparisons (2023 vs. 2022) for most daytime broadcast shows among Households and Total Viewers will be unavailable for the foreseeable future due to figures being unavailable to Soap Opera Network during that period.

Women 18-49 Rating (Rounded)

Pending Updates

Women 18-49 Rating (Unrounded)*

Pending Updates

Women 25-54 Rating (Rounded)

Pending Updates

Women 25-54 Rating (Unrounded)*

Pending Updates

Notable Preemptions/Schedule Changes:

• Pending Updates

Note: The post Daytime Broadcast Ratings for the Week of December 18-22, 2023 appeared first on the Soap Opera Network website.

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[Soapsuds]

Great to see Y&R up again.

Eric's story a big failure. It didn't move the needle and actually dropped the week the story concluded.

[dragonflies]

I'm confused cause this says BOLD added 155K but they went from a 1.9 to  1.8 lol

[Soapsuds]

B&B is up 155K from 2020. They were down in HHs and Total viewer's from last week. B&B dropped in both.

[dragonflies]

Thanks that makes more sense. Why do they compare to 2020 anyways?

[Errol]

I started adding additional years to compare the current ratings to so as to put in perspective how the shows are doing relative to a trend. I did this because we were long told that All My Children and One Life to Live were canceled due to their trend of losing viewers. Therefore, when you look at how a show does this week, last week or compared to one year ago, you don't have a clear picture of how the networks are looking at the positive or negative aspects of a show. For instance, OLTL was trending upward just before it was canceled. But it was down in the two years prior, which justified ABC's decision even though it should have been reversed before announcing the decision.

The fact that Y&R and B&B in particular still manage to outpace their 2020 numbers when most shows (daytime, primetime or otherwise) can't say they are up in anything compared to any recent periods, it's necessary to mention or highlight when people claim the sky is falling and the shows are about to be canceled or placed strictly on streaming.

I started out by doing two year differences and then adding three year differences a while back. This way, when available, you can see how the show is doing this year relative to last year, two years ago and three years ago. If the trend is just down, down, down or up, up, up (or some other mix) then you can understand why a show is either canceled or renewed.

Does that make sense?

[Contessa Donatella]

What should have been reversed? 

[Soapsuds]

That's a good question. I keep asking myself that too!

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@Errol???

Never mind  see Errol answered it.

[Errol]

ABC's decision on canceling One Life to Live should have been reversed before they made the announcement. The show was on an upward trend in the weeks/months before the decision and was outpacing General Hospital in many instances, not to mention it remains the highest-rated canceled soap of the last 30 years and the only soap within that time frame to gain viewers during its final months on the air (not just a last-minute bump for finale week).

Sí

[Contessa Donatella]

Personally I think Frons wanted to go ahead & cancel it before people took it off the chopping block. That perverse situation where a soap is getting better & TPTB act precipitously before the show can actually save itself.

That's why I think Susan D. Lee acted in April 1999 instead of in May as had been pre-planned. The shows all had deadlines & ratings goals & she even called MADD back from out of the country. 

[dragonflies]

They wouldn't reverse it cause Frons wanted it gone. His pet was GH even though GH is the one that deserved cancellation

That did make sense Errol but also that was the covid era and all show's ratings were down big time. So is it really an accurate comparison?

[Maxim]

It's great to have all these years put together for comparison. And I think 2020 a LOT of people tuned in since they were staying at home. 

[Jeff]

I think that is the point to show the numbers during 2020, the height of covid, when production was at a halt, and weren't we only getting only a couple new episodes a week.  The comparison shows how the soaps have rebounded (or not as the case may be) since the pandemic.

[Errol]

Ratings were terrible in the first few months following the pandemic shutdown, yes. However, when B&B and Y&R are the only ones showing improvement over those 2020 numbers, I think it is worth noting. It shows it's taken time for them to build back their audiences while the other shows, which had gotten early bounces (like the game shows) are definitely not performing so great. I could add 2019 to further compare if that helps clear things up even better, but I'm not sure it would.

We started getting all-new episodes every day like we used to when B&B went back to originals on July 20, 2020. Y&R and GH soon followed in August, and DAYS, which technically never stopped airing originals, returned with episodes filmed after the pandemic shutdown in October. 

Otherwise, yes.