BTG: History, Behind the Scenes Articles & Photos

[DramatistDreamer]

Generations was groundbreaking in its own time but I hope that this soap by virtue of having a Black HW would pay more attention to detail than Generations did. Generations was akin to the first season of A Different World. Hopefully The Gates will be more akin to the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th seasons of ADW.

[Aback]

It's funny how some people here are somehow pretending they predicted this lmao

I'm not that excited about the news. I know I should be - it is a good sign after all. But I wish there was some indication that the genre is being reinvented. Because it needs to. Are we still considering depicting the life of rich people? Come on.

On the topic of reinventing the formula, the poster sharing that CBS might be willing to re-air the show in a night-time slot was promising. I wish I had more of those signs, but I know it's too, too early.

I'm also skeptical about P&G's involvement. P&G has long history with soaps, we know that. But they haven't dealt with soaps since 2008 or so. Where has their know-how ended up? The people involved with soaps must have retired by now. And I'm sure they left no handbook.

As for B&B, I remember Brad Bell playing golf with one of Netflix's big bosses... I'm sure he has a back-up plan.

[Contessa Donatella]

Please register in order to view this content

[detroitpiston]

This is amazing news I’d never expected. Super happy for MVJ. So much potential to revitalize and get things right.

I would love if they borrowed from the UK production model set wise. I could see them potentially filming in Atlanta instead of LA as well.

[Faulkner]

I’m very skeptical. Hopeful, yes. Excited by the sheer wildness of a new daytime soap even being considered in 2024. DAYS getting shunted off to Peacock seemed like it gave permission to the other networks to go soapless. Nothing about the state of GH, Y&R, or B&B would have given anyone confidence that networks were investing in the genre. (Y&R and B&B’s treatment of their Black characters has been uniformly half-assed if not offensive.) The proposed AMC revival had a dreadful pedigree and wasn’t even going to air in daytime. And the more we heard about it, the less promising it seemed.

The soaps have been so lazy and stale for so long that these new developments (PM coming out of retirement to co-HW GH, The Gates) are a shock to the system. We haven’t had excitement surrounding the genre in MANY years.

For the last five or six years, if soaps made the mainstream news, it was usually a story about the untimely tragic death of a soap icon. It was becoming depressing to even come to this board at times. 

All of a sudden, we have proof of life. We can certainly try and work our way back to identify signs that we either overlooked or underestimated. A few people like @Vee and @DramatistDreamer suggested that maybe the pandemic and the bursting of the SVOD streaming bubble could lead to a reinvestment in soaps. There does seem to be a return to the “comfort food” of the old monoculture. Pluto is basically the cable bundle reimagined. Even award shows are rebounding from their previous lows. The Super Bowl just had its biggest viewership numbers ever. There are some promising signs of life among broadcast and cable viewership numbers. 

That said, we’re still nowhere near where things were even 6-7 years ago before the bottom fell out. Technological advances aren’t going to stop. Daytime audiences are still literally dying off, and whole generations are growing up with a completely different concept of consumption. Streaming is great, but they still haven’t figured out how to make it comparably lucrative for anyone but the executives. We all know that CBS, like many of the major media companies, is constantly the subject of merger and acquisition rumors, which have only adds a new layer of uncertainty.

I’m curious about the economics of launching a soap in 2024, even one owned by a network in partnership with a built-in sponsor like P&G. It’s expensive to do a soap well. What numbers would The Gates need to hit in terms of live viewing to be sustainable in this day and age? What will P&G be happy with?

[Chris B]

I’ve been saying for years that soaps are more viable than people think. I don’t think this news is that shocking if you really think about it. The biggest issue was that nobody seemed to be willing to look at soaps and care to do anything with them, but with minimal promo these soaps are getting similar ratings to what airs in prime time and they’re all higher rated than all of these celebrated cable shows. 
 

The biggest thing that was held against soaps was their budgets but that simply isn’t true anymore. I recall an article around 10 years ago putting Days budget around 30 million if I’m remembering correctly. Look at all of Peacock’s shows and they’re paying that much or much more just to get an 8-10 episode season. Some of these streaming shows have budgets in the hundreds of millions. With them bleeding money, they need things that can drive year round subscriptions and that’s soaps. We don’t have an indication of how the Bell soaps do on streaming but Days and GH are both top ten on their apps (and for what it’s worth, so we’re AMC/OLTL back in the day). 
 

Then you have things like CBS picking the Daytime Emmys back up, prime time specials for GH and Y&R, a four year renewal for Y&R and two years for Days. Clearly these shows are doing better than were giving them credit for. 
 

I also think a new soap has a better chance of success since they will have a second platform for viewers to sample it with streaming. Just imagine how much better something like Passions would’ve done if it was in the streaming age and had that second window. 
 

The key is going to be that they have to modernize it. It can’t have the old soap look. I’d consider filming somewhere like Atlanta where their budget can go further. Maybe they can get a studio that can support regular exterior filming. A large Black cast is another plus and if the stories are modern and in line with what we get in prime time, it could reel in viewers. 
 

Now if it’s the same dated and tired stories we’re getting from the other soaps then of course it won’t work, but I imagine they have better sense than that. 

[DramatistDreamer]

People can believe or disbelief in foresight as they like, I really couldn’t care less. I wonder how many other people mentioned Vail Bloom returning to Y&R? For years, there were folks who had sworn she had burned her bridges and wouldn’t be back. I was not one of those people.

I know sometimes my posts may get buried in these threads but it became obvious to me when P&G was putting out press releases (yes, I read those too lol) about those silly little “Choose Your Own Adventure” shows just to sell soap. Years ago, I posted an article about it and somewhat sarcastically mentioned that if they were going to invest in this type of experimental programming just to sell their products, they may as well go back to producing a soap because those “Choose Your Own Adventure” dramas sounded a lot like an interactive soap opera. This was the around the same time that everyone was talking about the “Choose Your Own Adventure” themed episode of Black Mirror. Nobody remembers that, I guess.

Please register in order to view this content

It really wasn’t shocking, even the P&G part of it, if you read/watched their social media and their investor relations reports. They left a trail of clues over the last few years.

Edited March 9, 2024 by DramatistDreamer

[Vee]

I remember your posts. I found this stuff curious at the time too, along with the social media details where they touted inventing the soap opera. It was suspicious, but I thought it might have to do with releasing library/archive content down the line or maybe someday even revisiting some of the existing IP. I never once thought they'd come back in with an all-new show.

I have suspected for some time that soaps would become the safe harbor in the wake of the streaming crash, and I talked about it a bit over the last year. But these changes at several networks are bigger and swifter than I'd anticipated.

Edited March 9, 2024 by Vee

[DramatistDreamer]

Oh, it was absolutely galling to me that they were putting out mini documentaries touting their association with the soap opera while they leave their IP library to collect dust! But P&G had some intense power struggles (intraparty strife and a close call with a possible hostile takeover) that Y&R wishes they could write. In a previous life, I used to conduct research on M&As so that type of reading was intriguing to me, like reading a novella.

 

On a separate note, not to be disrespectful to L.A. soaps but I really hope “The Gates” can employ some of that NYC style of production. Please, no actors reading cue cards or strategically placed cheat sheets, learn the lines, please!

[Jdee43]

I think you can say soaps are back or are  viable again if they ever return to NBC broadcast TV. I hope this project somehow leads to that.

[te.]

This should've been done with some of the soaps that launched in the 90s - ie The City and Sunset Beach, since those were directed at the 18-34 demographic that had gotten a sudden interest in soaps due to the success of Beverly Hills, 90210 and Melrose Place, yet were airing in time slots (noon) that none of that audience were at home. Unfortunately, I think late airings wouldn't be as effective today, so I'd hope they would go all out on streaming too. 

[Vee]

This is where we use the pagan rites to summon @EricMontreal22, who I believe spent ages trying to track down the pilot for Michael Malone's late night FOX soap set in New Orleans. (Did y'all know it apparently starred Michael Park, Henry Simmons and future GL star Nicole Forester? I sure didn't.)

BTW, it's apparently available for viewing by request in Malone's papers and material at Duke University. I would try it myself but it looks like it's in person only.

Edited March 9, 2024 by Vee

[te.]

This is what people easily forget. Prime time is diminishing at a faster rate than daytime; in fact, if Y&R rated as it does in daytime in prime time, it would be on the level of getting renewed these days. Soaps also frequently appear in the top ten lists on streamers - and as you say, they produce 260 episodes a year for a fraction of the costs of a similar 8-10 episode high-budget series.

I mean, FreeVee taking a chance of Neighbours shows that they don't view it as a dead genre, but a lot will be about making the economics work out and getting as much as possible out of it (hence people talking about it re-airing in a late night slot).

[Contessa Donatella]

Sunset Beach being on at lunch was so crazy! I wonder to this day what they were thinking. 

[Paul Raven]

In households yes, but the demos for  Y&R would be older and less affluent than the primetime show with the same rating.