June 19-23, 2006

[Max]

Nobody has mentioned this so far, but despite DOOL's huge ratings increase, Passions failed to make any gains. As a matter of fact, the show was still at an anemic 1.5 in the households. Even more alarmingly, Passions was at dismal 6th place in the women 18-34 demos. This proves two things: that (1) the executives at NBC were complete idiots (i.e., they made a very idiotic business decision) for not cancelling the show earlier this year and (2) JERk's reputation for being able to attract the young demos is now totally obsolete.

[darraholic]

I think alot more men watch soap operas then people think. It's just most of them refuse to admit to it.

[PJA]

Your last line is incorrect. Several articles over the last few months have indicated that networks (daytime and primetime) are looking more at households (all demos combined) to determine advertising rates. If they lose male viewers then that will lower the total household ratings.

[Carolyn1980]

What articles? Can you link me to one?

Because the networks don't sell *any* ad time in daytime based on male viewers. None.

Households don't mean anything to advertisers, because they are *always* looking for a specific demographic group. In daytime, it's not men, of any age.

[All My Shadows]

I think the point is, they need to cater to the entire audience. If there's a chart for a group of people, cater to those people.

It makes absolutely NO sense AT ALL for them to keep courting a demo that they fail in repeatedly, while another demo is consistantly tuning in no matter what they put on the screen. Are they that blind!?

[SteveFrame]

Well advertisers don't really advertise directly to men much at all - primetime or daytime. I have read several articles over the years and another one recently while waiting in the lobby at my Mom's doctor. The article talked about studying the shopping habits of men and what influenced them to buy anything. And they looked at what type things men even buy.

The study said the majority of men still don't do alot of shopping for everyday items. It found that the majority of men still don't even buy their own underwear - they either let their wives get them or wait for birthdays or holidays and get them as gifts. Men for the most part are not influenced by advertising for certain products. They will tend to buy what is on sale as far as household products or what their mother or someone else has always used.

So advertisers daytime and primetime are still after women for the most part, but do gear some things toward men. I mean that is the reason for the sexy advertising and half naked women - they do get men's attentions.

[jjjg]

So the day Simon really returned they gained almost 400,000 people. They need to grab

those people and keep them, they couldn't sustain their high day through the week.

[dawn9476]

I will LMAO off if Days eventually catches up to B&B and starts to beat them. That will be a real fluck you to GH who could be ahead of B&B right now if they had a better writier.

[henrietta]

Since when is 50 considered old lady? I am not an old lady. I spend lots of money. Maybe they should reconsider what they advertise? In the past, men did not do a lot of buying, so the reason they don't cater to them. Maybe those times are changing too.

All they do is recycle the same viewers. They need a hook, to get new viewers. The soap that can do that will be #1.

I'm very disappointed that GH had such a drop.

[Rebecca]

Go Days! :-D

[pamela1965]

at GH the writers suck [!@#$%^&*]

[Ms. Walsh]

Women over 50 aren't old ladies, at least to me anyway. But to advertisers, the 50+ category is looked at as some bad demo b/c of the assumption that b/c retirees are on a fixed income, they're less likely to buy their products.

So basically they're suggesting that women 18-49 are gullible enough to take what an ad says at face value and spend "their husband's money" to buy it. That doesn't happen anymore: women still do the majority of the shopping, but more women are also earning their own money as well and are having a bigger say in the financial responsibilities of the household.

75% of women work outside of the home, which means that the majority of women 18-49 are not home during the daytime when soaps are on! So why are they still the targeted demo? I understand that they're always going to be the demo that advertisers desire, but that also doesn't mean that women over 50 or men should be considered undesirable by soaps.

All I was saying before was that, in the case of ATWT, it tries so hard to find that demo that no longer exists on soaps. Meanwhile, they have two very strong and very neglected demos full of loyal viewers who they should be writing their storylines for; instead, they keep trying to pull in that younger audience, and it's never going to work, and in the mean time, they're pissing off their loyal viewers to the point that they stop watching the show altogether.

[bellcurve]

If daytime advertises to males, I wanna see ads for 2xist and Viagra during B&B!

[Cheap21]

why does GH do so poorly in the demos for men when its the soap that seems to be most catered for men?

[All My Shadows]

Oh I agree about 50+ women. I don't view them as old at all (I don't say that someone's "old" until like 80, but even then, it's all in the individual). The advertisers think of them that way but don't realize that they are the people who are doing the most shopping for P&G things. I mean, I said it a while back in another thread, but I'll say it again. What sounds more realistic, a 25 year old woman buying air sanitizers and carpet cleaners, or a 55 year old woman buying air sanitizers and carpet cleaners?

It just doesn't make any sense to me. They have an audience of Women 50+ and Men who are tuning in now, while they are catering to 18-49. Think of what the numbers would do if they catered to Women 50+ and Men. A while back, there was a thread about soap nicknames and one site called ATWT "the grey-haired soap." When I read that, I thought it sounded cool, and they should take advantage of that reputation. It would be funner than Christmas to see characters like Nancy and Kim and Susan and Lisa in the positions that Jennifer and Emily and Meg and Katie are in right now.