ARTICLE: ‘Beyond the Gates’ Splashes In Debut, ‘The Young and the Restless’ & ‘The Bold and the Beautiful’ Hit Season Highs Among Key Demos

[Liberty City]

[BetterForgotten]

Credit to @te. for posting this in the BTG chain.

From The Hollywood Reporter:

TV Ratings: ‘Beyond the Gates’ Has Promising Start for CBS (Exclusive)

I think this part is key as the show was developed with Black viewers in mind so the demographics they’re looking at might be very different from the other soaps:

“More than half of the Beyond the Gates audience — 55 percent — for its premiere week was made up of Black viewers. That compares to 30 percent for CBS’ The Bold and the Beautiful, 29 percent for The Young and the Restless and 22 percent for General Hospital.”

[edgeofnik]

[T]he three-day streaming numbers for Beyond the Gates are up 7,411% from The Talk‘s.

[Maxim]

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And they (people) once said that soaps were over. Hehhehehe. 

Edited March 6 by Maxim

[Errol]

Not hard to do when you're dealing with a number starting with 0 ("The Talk").

[edgeofnik]

True that! The good news is that we now have some streaming stats on Y&R + B&B. 

It appears Y&R gets 300K+ from streaming. It's been a long time since we've seen total viewer numbers and not sure if those were L+SD or L+3/+7. 

It does show that there is interest since streaming is proactive viewing. Anecdotally we knew that from DAYS/GH.

This is great news for the soap industry. Let's hope BTG can keep it going. I'd love nothing more than a soap renaissance!

[Soapsuds]

To think Y&R was #1 in black viewers. 

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[BetterForgotten]

Given the audience skewed younger and more multicultural, it’s safe to say a bunch of folks who don’t typically watch daytime tuned in for the premiere week. That’s encouraging - let’s hope they stick around. 

[Khan]

I agree.  They're not sustainable economically, and they're not exactly luring in audiences either, no matter HOW many big names they attach to these projects.

[Chris B]

I did some digging with primetime and cable ratings and I saw a report from January-April of last year and saw that Y&R made the list with 16 billion minutes viewed during that time frame. Shogun, a show that was budgeted at $250 million dollars and got endless promotion managed 4.93 billion minutes viewed during the same time frame. Y&R's budget is probably $30-40 million and they're getting so much more value out of it.

I feel like it's kinda like the old days when daytime paid for primetime. Obviously not to the extent that they did in the past but I feel like each soap is more valuable to their networks than we think. It's just a matter of the people in charge being willing to accept that and value what they bring which I hope BTG will challenge them to do.

[Khan]

I still can't believe FX spent so much money on a series that is so dull.  I don't care that it's more respectful to the James Clavell novel than the original miniseries was, or to Asian culture in general.  None of that means anything if your audience is bored.

People always want to blame the shrinking across-the-board ratings on how much the Internet has changed our viewing habits and so forth.  Frankly, I think that's bullshit.  I think any show could pull down DALLAS-like numbers even today, it's just a matter of telling stories that people want to see and leaving the people who tell those stories the hell alone.

[BoldRestless]

And yet we can't get a f***in' overnight set crew! How infuriating!

[Khan]

Does Y&R need a lot of sets to tell good stories, though?  Does ANY show need a lot of sets to tell good stories?

Honestly, I'd be okay with Y&R having a DAYS-like budget if the trade-off was having a halfway interesting show for a change.

[BoldRestless]

It's something I've thought about a lot. Yeah, I get what you're saying. You can tell good stories at a kitchen table. Bill Bell could do that. I'm liking the Amy/Damian storyline right now and that doesn't involve more than two sets. OTOH the show is severely limited in storyline choice when they don't have basics like a large hospital set and a police station. Everything becomes a throwaway line at the coffeehouse. Even with the fetish for "business stories" they don't even have offices! It's just beyond parody. A show is firing on all cylinders when it's making a best effort at everything... writing, acting, directing, sets, wardrobe, lighting, music, etc. That's what BTG is trying to do (granted some growing pains in some of these areas).

[BetterForgotten]

At one point, Y&R and B&B were supposed to move to a new studio. That was put on pause, but I wonder for how much longer? CBS no longer owns Television City. The Price Is Right moved out in 2023.