Are the soaps doomed?

[bpatrick]

With the thread on "Guiding Light"'s possible
replacement, and the threat of "As The World
Turns" getting the axe in 2010, I have to ask:
do you think soap operas are doomed? When
you consider that "Y&R" and "B&B" are the only
two soaps that consistently maintain better than
a 2 rating, you have to wonder how many more
years any of them can last. The downside, as
most of you will probably agree, is more Jerry
Springer-type talk shows and/or more courtroom
shows.

Look ahead to 2015. Do you think any soaps
will be left?

 

[imhomerjay]

2015? Yes. Y&R and B&B will still be here. Probably GH. Maybe AMC, too. ATWT & OLTL? Eh, not taking bets there. But game shows were written off as dead, with Price just lingering because Barker was still around. Barker left, and Price is headed into its third season without him and the probability of being joined by two new daytime network game shows (revivals, no less). Talk shows and court shows in those slots aren't going to go much, if at all, above a 2.0 either; welcome to broadcast TV circa 2009.

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

2015? Yes. Y&R and B&B will still be here. Probably GH. Maybe AMC, too. ATWT & OLTL? Eh, not taking bets there. But game shows were written off as dead, with Price just lingering because Barker was still around. Barker left, and Price is headed into its third season without him and the probability of being joined by two new daytime network game shows (revivals, no less). Talk shows and court shows in those slots aren't going to go much, if at all, above a 2.0 either; welcome to broadcast TV circa 2009.

Or worse yet--could there be many stations carrying several hours of--gasp--Infomercials? (particularly on the My, CW, and Fox affiliates, and indies--or perhaps even on some of the "Big 3" stations).

 

[imhomerjay]

It's a big jump from "soaps are dead" to "networks gave all the time back." We're only talking five years out--it doesn't mean if more soaps bite the dust that the networks won't try some other genres in daytime to keep the revenue and spend less in the process. The soaps' fate has no direct bearing on the My, CW and Fox stations or the indies.

 

[Starbucks]

Remember...facts and statistics....no personal analogy. No actual trends that are happening in front of all us.....just facts and statistics.

 

[briancraig]

For several years, I kept thinking we would reach a point where the soaps would start to stabilize in the ratings.

But instead, they just continue to go down every season and you wonder just how low they can get before the networks just get out of daytime drama.

I'm sure the profitability of the soaps is more complicated than just what the ratings tell us. For example, the Bold and Beautiful is a huge international success which might help it live a longer life. Also, the fact that ABC owns their own soaps and needs the programming for SoapNet might extend their 3 shows a little longer.

Last year at this time the soaps weren't doing very well, but look at how many viewers each show has lost this year. Only Days of Our Lives has gained viewers.


Young & Restless -82,000
Bold & Beautiful -481,000
Days Of Our Lives +56,000
One Life To Live -113,000
All My Children -124,000
General Hospital -381,000
As The World Turns -419,000
Guiding Light -466,000

 

[arnoldevns]

Soaps are being hammered by two things:
1. Declining number of female viewers in the daytime. More women are working outside the home and those that do stay home have a lot of other viewing choices.
2. DVRs. Time shifting on a VCR years ago was done, but not nearly to the extent that it's happening now with DVRs. The problem with DVRs is the ability to skip commercials. While Nielsen measures DVR viewing, advertisers know that most people watching a time-shifted show this way will not see their ads. It hurts the network's ability to sell advertising on programs. It devalues the viewership of the show. This is true of prime-time programming as well. While overnight Nielsen ratings show "same day" viewership of a show, many people pile up programs all week long on their DVR and watch them on the weekend. Those viewers are not counted in the overnight numbers. Nielsen does produce ratings that show viewership of programs 3 days and 7 days past airing, but that does little to help advertisers unless they have product placement in a show.

Soaps are doomed, but so are just about all programs on commercial television unless something radical changes.

 

[Starbucks]

I've tried to explain this to a few a people that are are strictly based on facts and statistics...even without DVR's....there's other cable shows that intelligent people with money to spend, has other paths too watch on TV, like CNBC, CNN, MSNBC, Travel Channel, etc....plus today's soap operas have been gradually replaced with reality shows which is more of a real step of real life drama to the younger generation.
Plus cable has fragmented channels for daytime, just like radio formats...you have game show, soap TV...you can't be something for eveybody these days.

 

[imhomerjay]

To keep the proper perspective, DVRs are now in about 25 percent of homes, and according to an analysis published this year, the net effect is less than five percent of all TV advertising is skipped.

 

[TexasTom]

For even more perspective on the "DVRs will doom commercial TV" meme, consider that in the mid-eighties articles were appearing in trade publications (TV/Radio Age and Broadcasting Magazine) about how the fast scan function on VCRs was going to destroy commercial broadcasting. Note that around the time that those articles appeared, VCR penetration was around 25% -- essentially where DVRs are today.

Needless to say, the predictions of doom were wrong 25 years ago. The fallacy was in assuming that as the remaining 75% of the population bought VCRs, they would use them in the same manner as the 25% that already had. But that ended up not being true, because while early VCR buyers typically used the record function extensively for time shifting programming, late adapters used their VCRs mostly to play back rented movies -- and never even bothered to set the VCR's clock, let alone bothering to figure out how to make a timer recording.

Now the argument will be made that DVRs are easier to use -- and while there is certainly truth to that, I think it misses the point. VCRs with on screen displays were never especially difficult to program...viewers who didn't learn how to use the timers just didn't really care all that much about being able to record and time shift programming, but were instead content to sit through whatever happened to be airing live at the moment -- commercials and all. For much the same reason, DVRs won't destroy commercial television, because a lot of folks will never bother to get one because they simply don't care to timeshift TV programming.

 

[arnoldevns]

Going to have to disagree with the numbers presented here. DVR penetration is higher than 25%. It's 40% in some markets.
It does have an effect on ratings and the idea that less than 5% of advertising is skipped is ridiculous.


Let me point you to a footnote in an ABC press release on ratings: http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/06/25/abc-delivers-year-to-year-increases-on-wednesday/21462
A note about increasing DVR penetration and year-to-year rating comparisons: Year-to-year rating comparisons based on the Live + Same Day data stream are distorted by the level of DVR penetration in the Nielsen sample, which has jumped up to 32% currently, from 25% at the same point in 2008. More viewers are watching shows on their own timetables, which may not be reflected in the overnight next day numbers. The only truly valid year-to-year comparison would be one based on the Live + 7 Day metric, once those stats are released by Nielsen.

 

[Irishfl]

Soaps are doomed, but so are just about all programs on commercial television unless something radical changes.

What if a la carte came to be law? 100 million families go from an average of 100+ channels to 17 channels, but with locals keeping their must carry status network TV suddenly regains its exclusive hold on exclusive access to all homes. I think all programing on network tv would see a boost in ratings with less channels to dilute total viewership per any hour.

 

[Starbucks]

Now they are stating that Hulu, as well as the networks online will eventually threaten TIVO. And when I use those online services, it does make a difference on how much i may need to keep my TIVO. I can download them to your player(on computer) as well. online has also made a noticable difference on mine and people's viewing habits. I just don't have the facts and statistics on that at the moment.

 

[easttxtv]

Another thing:::: **better writing** !!

Too many soaps over the years have suffered from a revolving-door effect in the head-writer and executive producer positions. This has caused many storylines to go in different and uncharacteristic directions (or wrap up way short of the original storyline's length of time), and drastic actor/character changes because the new HW or EP doesn't like one actor/portrayer or does like another. All this together is enough for any fan to lose patience and interest. Also, networks seeing 1 soap having popularity and making their other soaps try to copy-cat the popular soap's look/pace/storytelling. Wrong!! Each soap originated independently of the others (except in case of a spinoff) with a unique cast of characters and setting. They shouldn't ALL have hospitals in towns scared silly with mobs, or popular characters being possessed and levitating, or concurrent serial killers on EVERY show. Sometimes a network is trigger-happy and sends a soap to File 13 before it has even found an audience yet. The worst problem is _history_. Very few soaps have used the show's history to their advantage; most get 'history amnesia', especially in recent years (or, alternately, trying to re-shape their history coughahemY&Rahemcough). I'm sure Irna Phillips, Bill Bell, and Douglas Marland would be spinning in their graves if they could see the shape of their soaps now.

 

[imhomerjay]

Going to have to disagree with the numbers presented here. DVR penetration is higher than 25%. It's 40% in some markets.
It does have an effect on ratings and the idea that less than 5% of advertising is skipped is ridiculous.


Let me point you to a footnote in an ABC press release on ratings: http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/06/25/abc-delivers-year-to-year-increases-on-wednesday/21462
A note about increasing DVR penetration and year-to-year rating comparisons: Year-to-year rating comparisons based on the Live + Same Day data stream are distorted by the level of DVR penetration in the Nielsen sample, which has jumped up to 32% currently, from 25% at the same point in 2008. More viewers are watching shows on their own timetables, which may not be reflected in the overnight next day numbers. The only truly valid year-to-year comparison would be one based on the Live + 7 Day metric, once those stats are released by Nielsen.

From The Economist (April 2009) referencing a Nielsen analysis:

"According to Nielsen, a media-research outfit, 29% of American homes now have one. The boxes are in a higher proportion of the households advertisers most care about. Jack Wakshlag of Turner Broadcasting, a cable company, calculates that DVR-owning households earn about $20,000 more than average. Yet those households do not use them nearly as much as one might expect. Families with DVRs seem to spend 15-20% of their viewing time watching pre-recorded shows, and skip only about half of all advertisements. This means only about 5% of television is time-shifted and less than 3% of all advertisements are skipped. Mitigating that loss, people with DVRs watch more television. "

 

[landtuna]

Look ahead to 2015. Do you think any soaps will be left?

I am a child of the 50's and the last half of the 50's decade had a wide variety of shows during the afternoon. There were kids shows of all types (including at least one live show in each major market), dance shows for teens, Disney serials, cartoons, sitcoms (Margie, Lucy etc.) and a few Superman and B-westerns thrown in.

There were also MLB games which my mother watched faithfully instead of soaps.

Today we have soaps, talk shows and the ubiquitous 'judge' shows (which make me feel like I'm hanging out of my tenement window watching the neighbors bicker while hanging their washing). A sad story indeed.

I always thought the soaps were the bottom feeders of daytime TV but I was wrong. It has gotten worse, much worse.

Will they survive? Probably - at least for the next decade or so. Should they survive? Another question entirely.

 

[bpatrick]

Without all the technical knowledge of DVRs, etc.,
nor a comparison of ratings with last year (although
Soap Opera Weekly takes care of that), I have to focus
on the quality, and I agree with the person who said that
Irna Phillips, Bill Bell, and Doug Marland would spin in their
graves if they knew what was happening on their shows.
I mean, I can turn on "Bold And The Beautiful" once a year
and know what's happening: Stephanie and Brooke are
feuding, or Brooke is in bed with one of the Forrester men!
"Young And The Restless" is almost as bad: who owns Jabot
this week, Victor or Jack?

There are two other head writers who helped make "Guiding
Light" my favorite soap from about 1988 to 1993: Pam Long
and Jill Lorie Hurst. What they're doing in these last few months
before the end would make both writers puke.

Yet I agree with the poster who thinks "Y&R," "B&B," "General
Hospital," and "All My Children" are safe (I might add "Days Of
Our Lives," at least for now). My gut says that this time next
year "As The World Turns" will be where "Guiding Light" is now;
I won't stick my neck out on "One Life To Live," but I think if
ABC were to cancel one of its soaps, that would be the one.

 

[FreddyE1977]

For even more perspective on the "DVRs will doom commercial TV" meme, consider that in the mid-eighties articles were appearing in trade publications (TV/Radio Age and Broadcasting Magazine) about how the fast scan function on VCRs was going to destroy commercial broadcasting. Note that around the time that those articles appeared, VCR penetration was around 25% -- essentially where DVRs are today.

Needless to say, the predictions of doom were wrong 25 years ago.

Around the same time they were floating predictions that soaps would be featuring full-frontal nudity within five years

They are seeing serious erosion in all 3 of their traditional audience bases:
- women 18-60 who do not work outside the home (falling off rapidly)
- older women (loss through attition)
- college students (increasingly lost to online, mobile, twitter, etc., many no longer
OWN television sets!)

I really don't see how they are gonna survive that in the long run.

 

[imhomerjay]

Days of Our Lives is an interesting case being the lone holdout on NBC. It's not that a straggler can't survive when its network cancels the other shows around it (Price is Right), and it's not that there are many rumors that NBC wants to expand Today yet again, but will they want to hold that hour as a drama? NBC has shown it will make bold moves in an effort to shake up the status quo, making it hard to predict.

Over at ABC, here's the interesting question--what if they do, for arguments' sake, kill off OLTL? Do they move AMC later? GH earlier? The donut hole in the middle creates a programming challenge. How do you maintain the flow without doing additional harm to the survivors? CBS had it comparitively easy--with GL either at the end of the block or stranded by itself in the monring, replacing it likely does little harm to the survivors...and conveniently leaves the next-weakest show at the end of the block, where if the World does stop turning in the near future, they still don't expose themselves to risks by moving the others.

 

[bpatrick]

I'm looking at the fact that "OLTL" is usually ABC's
weakest soap, and I am not saying it's going
to be canceled; I just don't want to stick my neck out.
ABC has an advantage CBS doesn't: it owns its own
shows and can do a better job of cost control.

But if you want to pin me down and assume that
between now and my cutoff date of 2015, "OLTL"
does get the axe, I think "GH" goes to 2 PM (ET),
and 3 PM goes back to the affiliates. Indeed, if
enough CBS affiliates opt for the game shows at
10 instead of 3, 3 PM may go the way 4 PM did
years ago--back to the affiliates (NBC doesn't
program that hour, and many of the bigger CBS
stations don't carry "GL" at 3 right now).

But I re-emphasize: I did not say that ABC
was going to cancel "OLTL." I do think it's the
most vulnerable re its sister shows. That's all.

Which begs another question: if "ATWT" is next
in line for the chopping block, what does CBS do
about 2 PM? Except for a few Mountain stations
that are on day-behind, "ATWT" isn't out there
by itself in the morning; New York, Chicago, and
the other "GL" morning stations run "ATWT" at 2/1.
So what do you think CBS's plans would be?

My personal choice: give 12:30 back to the
affiliates, put "Y&R" at 1, and expand "B&B" to
an hour at 2--if the cast will go along with it.
(In the Central time zone, "Y&R" stays at 11.)