Take into consideration why they were doing things like focus groups. For a long time, soaps had been the networks' cash cow. They literally paid for primetime shows. When they burst into the mainstream during the last 70s - mid 80s, networks started paying the big stars really high salaries, and soaps doing foreign location shoots became routine.
It wasn't just big ticket stuff like star salaries. When you watch the episodes from the 80s, it's STUNNING how many extras and "under fives" (people who speak less than 5 lines of dialogue) are in the scenes! Company, The Blue Orchid, and the country club were routinely packed with people (this was also true of other soaps). Not to mention there was a period when it seemed like they had a huge party with everyone dressed like they were going to the Met Gala at least once a month.
By the end of the 80s, more and more people had cable TV, more women than ever were working full-time, by the early 90s having a home computer became more prevalent, and many people who started watching soaps while they were in college because it was "in" during the 80s didn't keep up with them.
So before OJ ever happened, networks were already panicking.
It's not odd that they started doing things like focus groups, or bringing back actors who had been popular during the days when they had high ratings. There was always stunt casting, but by the 90s it became almost an art form--some soap stars were bouncing around different soaps like crazy.
So of course they wanted Zimmer back--she was a big deal during the 80s.
I would even suggest that the reason the show got hammier (and that was not isolated to GL) is because they were, again, panicking. It was thought younger people liked that. There was this belief that the way to save soaps was to appeal to young people who would then become life-long viewers. While soaps always were high melodrama, they were a lot quieter, and that was seen as old-fashioned.
(Remember Passions? Boy-howdy, that show was over-the-top. Though it still doesn't beat Brazilian telenovelas, LOL).
By
DeeVee ·
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