• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

The rumor mill: Days Of Our Lives and Passions are about to be canceled

B

bpatrick

Just saw at www.soapcentral.com that NBC may
be about to cancel Days Of Our Lives and Passions,
its only two soaps. Although Passions does especially
well with younger audiences, its overall rating of 1.7
(translating to about 1.87 million viewers) doesn't help,
and Days has dropped as low as seventh among the nine
current soaps.

NBC's option to renew Passions comes up in January;
its option on a two-year renewal of Days comes up
in April. The article says that Days may end sometime
in 2007, and that an alternative distribution method
(such as a podcast) may be in the works.

Of course, rumors like this happen all the time;
as we all know, Guiding Light has been pronounced
all but dead for the last ten years. But one NBC
exec says that the world of daytime television is
changing. And it's true that all the soaps are losing
audience; even top-rated The Young And The Restless
squeaks by with a rating of around 4.

But I am shocked to hear that NBC is considering canceling
both its soaps (although, frankly, I can't stand either
of them).
 
I would be very shocked. I notice that NBC always has big stories on their website on how well the ratings are going for both of those shows. But then read this article and it sounds like soaps are dead. Who is right? What would they replace the shows with?
 
What you really want to look for is in what markets the shows are aired in their normal time slot...and where they are aired either delayed...or not at all.

Scripts are the same...and you can only show so much skin..and sleep with the same people ..and marry and divorce them so many times.
 
>What would they replace the shows with?

They may just give the time back to the affiliates to fill with still more courtroom and talk shows. Maybe expand Today to four hours, and/or allow affiliates to expand their midday news.
 
The answer to this one is easy, the soap audience is dying off. As the days of stay-at-home moms have given way to working moms, the number of eyeballs at home during soap hours has fallen.

That leaves the two groups that make up the bulk of soaps' (and the Price is Right's) audience: Retirees and college students. The retirees die and the college students go off to the working world.

The eyes of a lot of young mothers that do stay at home are also turned to TNT and USA. TNT's "Primetime in the Daytime" draws well on a daily basis and is making inroads in siphoning the college student audience.

Interestingly enough, this news and the general decline of soaps' ratings comes as the Soapnet Network has begun to post the highest ratings in its short life.

> Just saw at www.soapcentral.com that NBC may
> be about to cancel Days Of Our Lives and Passions,
> its only two soaps. Although Passions does especially
> well with younger audiences, its overall rating of 1.7
> (translating to about 1.87 million viewers) doesn't help,
> and Days has dropped as low as seventh among the nine
> current soaps.
>
> NBC's option to renew Passions comes up in January;
> its option on a two-year renewal of Days comes up
> in April. The article says that Days may end sometime
> in 2007, and that an alternative distribution method
> (such as a podcast) may be in the works.
>
> Of course, rumors like this happen all the time;
> as we all know, Guiding Light has been pronounced
> all but dead for the last ten years. But one NBC
> exec says that the world of daytime television is
> changing. And it's true that all the soaps are losing
> audience; even top-rated The Young And The Restless
> squeaks by with a rating of around 4.
>
> But I am shocked to hear that NBC is considering canceling
> both its soaps (although, frankly, I can't stand either
> of them).
>
 
> I would be very shocked. I notice that NBC always has big
> stories on their website on how well the ratings are going
> for both of those shows. But then read this article and it
> sounds like soaps are dead. Who is right? What would they
> replace the shows with?
>

I'd hope that this could be the opening for a return of daytime game shows, but I seriously doubt if that would happen. What will probably happen if this is true is either news or talk shows on NBC or returning the time to local stations, which might be filled with games some places, but more than likely more courtroom and trash talk shows. As much as I dislike soaps, I'd rather see them stay on than more of the same junk that has helped kill daytime TV over the past 20 years.
 
> >What would they replace the shows with?
>
> They may just give the time back to the affiliates to fill
> with still more courtroom and talk shows. Maybe expand Today
> to four hours, and/or allow affiliates to expand their
> midday news.
>

You might also see packages similiar to what the WB is starting soon, a set of primetime dramas that the network already owns the rights to. The WB is going with ER, 8 Simple Rules and a couple of other shows packaged together for weekday afternoons, replacing their kids' programming. SOme affiliates are moving it up to the 2:00 PM block. I could see NBC doing that with a couple of their Universal Tv properties.
 
I believe, now that NBC is owned by Universal, that running movies will be the way to go...as a short run fix, until they decide to experiment with something new.
Retirees and College students are two groups, but there's also a large "Unemployable" audience out there...disabled, and young...but never too disabled to buy products advertised durring that time. Perhaps the challenge is to find programming that grabs the attention of ALL three groups...along with what's left of the "Stay at home" Mom, care giver, or who ever.

This is where I see ANY game show with products shown throughout the show, (much like how price is right does things) as being a good idea, but without actually copying price is right.<P ID="signature">______________
"If you never say NO, How much is your YES worth?"
</P>
 
If soaps are dying...

... it will be a sad day for my mother when The Young and the Restless goes. She was a bank teller and scheduled her lunch break around it. She's retired now. She's watched it from day one. How's Y&R doing lately ratingswise?

ixnay
 
Re: If soaps are dying...

> ... it will be a sad day for my mother when The Young and
> the Restless goes. She was a bank teller and scheduled her
> lunch break around it. She's retired now. She's watched it
> from day one. How's Y&R doing lately ratingswise?

Isn't Y&R the longest running soap? (IIRC it came over from radio)

-A<P ID="signature">______________

</P>
 
Re: If soaps are dying...

> Isn't Y&R the longest running soap? (IIRC it came over from
> radio)
>
> -A
>

Y&R came on in either '71 or '72, I believe. The longest running soap still in production is "Guiding Light".
 
Re: If soaps are dying...

> > Isn't Y&R the longest running soap? (IIRC it came over
> from
> > radio)
> >
> > -A
> >
>
> Y&R came on in either '71 or '72, I believe. The longest
> running soap still in production is "Guiding Light".
>
Y&R debuted March 26, 1973. Guiding Light debuted on
radio January 25, 1937, moving to television June 30, 1952.

The soaps that do NOT appear to be in trouble at this point:
Young And The Restless, Bold And The Beautiful, General Hospital,
All My Children, One Life To Live. As The World Turns and
Guiding Light appear safe for now (ATWT is currently ranked
fourth among the nine soaps, and GL's ratings are holding
steady at about 2.3).

Someone raised the point about how many times you can show
people sleeping around, divorcing, etc., without the audience
becoming bored. I used to tape Bold And The Beautiful but
got sick of it over one thing: how many times is Brooke going
to go through the Forrester men? Anyone know how many times
she's been married to Eric, Ridge, and Thorne?

Another thing that's not helping is the predominance of
teenagers on just about all the shows. Since I'm off this
week, I've had a chance to look in on Guiding Light, and I see
exactly six characters I recognize. None are under 30.
And none of the younger characters appeal to me. I realize
the proliferation of teens on all the shows is for demographic
reasons, but the core audiences (especially for the CBS shows)
could hardly be blamed if they deserted.
 
SoapNet

> The soaps that do NOT appear to be in trouble at this point:
> Young And The Restless, Bold And The Beautiful, General
> Hospital,
> All My Children, One Life To Live. As The World Turns and
> Guiding Light appear safe for now (ATWT is currently ranked
> fourth among the nine soaps, and GL's ratings are holding
> steady at about 2.3).

All three of the ABC soaps, as well as Days of Our Lives, are currently on same-day replay on SoapNet.

If Days were to be cancelled, what would you see SoapNet doing? Add another soap rerun (Another World, Ryan's Hope and Port Charles are presently on the schedule)? Negotiate to put one of the CBS soaps in its place? Keep Days in production and use exclusivity of first-run episodes to build viewership?<P ID="signature">______________


</P>
 
NBC Spin On Soaps

Today (December 30th), NBC issued a press release announcing that NBC's two-soap lineup was #2 among women between 18 and 49; and number-one among women between 18 and 34 for the final three months of 2005.

According to the network's press release, NBC's daytime lineup has been number-one among women between 18 and 34 for six years. The release noted that "Days Of Our Lives" was #3 with women between 18 and 49 among all soaps, and "Passions" #7 (but there are nine daytime soaps on network television).

The release also reported that "Days" and "Passions" finished one-two among women between 18 and 34 during the last three months of 2005.

Thus, I would think that based on the press release, "Days" should be around for at least a little while longer. The future of "Passions" seems to me to be less certain.
 
Re: "Days Of Our Lives", "Passions" And The Future Of NBC Daytime

Based on an NBC press release that I linked to further down in this thread (see entry "NBC Spin On Soaps" for the link to that release), it seems to me that "Days Of Our Lives" isn't in any sort of ratings trouble, but "Passions" may be another story.

I could see NBC dropping "Passions", but I can't see "Days" getting dumped-----unless either it's ratings went way down or NBC was seeking to make major cost cuts.

Were NBC to get rid of both soaps, I think the most likely course of events would be turning back the 1-3 P.M. ET time period (in most East Coast cities, "Days" runs at 1 P.M. EST/EDT; "Passions" at 2 EST/EDT) to local stations. In all likelyhood, smaller and medium market affiliates would fill the gap with infomercials; large market affiliates would fill thge gap with more syndicated shows. We may see second-runs of shows like "Oprah", "Dr. Phil", "Wheel Of Fortune", "Jeopardy!", "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?", "Access Hollywood", "Extra", etc. that local stations already have the rights to.

Were NBC to keep programing the 1-3 P.M. ET time period, I could see four possibilities which between them could fill the gap:

(1) Some sort of early-afternoon infotainment show that would be produced by NBC News. Think of it as a 1 P.M. version of "Today", but with very little "hard" news.

(2) Reruns of old sitcoms and dramas, many from Universal.

(3) Reruns of some of the previous night's NBC entertainment programming (with Mondays being reruns of the best NBC primetime shows of the previous weekend).

(4) A long-shot: A daytime version of "Deal Or No Deal". The daytime version would have a potential top prize of $100,000 (or maybe $200,000 at the outside), instead of the $1 million potential top prize of the nighttime version. There would be, instead of 26 on-stage models (one with each suitcase), only one model on-stage, who would go to each suitcase when that suitcase's number is called by a contestant. She would then open that suitcase. Both of these ideas would bring the show's budget to a level that could be supported by the available ad revenue.

However, I feel that if there's going to be a five-times-a-week version of "Deal Or No Deal", it would be in first-run syndication in the hope stations would run it in late-afternoon and "Prime Access" (7 or 7:30 P.M. ET/PT) timeslots. It probably won't be on NBC's (or any other network's) daytime schedule.
 
Re: "Days Of Our Lives", "Passions" And The Future Of NBC Daytime

> Based on an NBC press release that I linked to further down
> in this thread (see entry "NBC Spin On Soaps" for the link
> to that release), it seems to me that "Days Of Our Lives"
> isn't in any sort of ratings trouble, but "Passions" may be
> another story.
>
> I could see NBC dropping "Passions", but I can't see "Days"
> getting dumped-----unless either it's ratings went way down
> or NBC was seeking to make major cost cuts.
>
> First off, if Days does get dumped, it won't be before
2007, and then it may find itself broadcasting first-run
episodes on SoapNet or iPod. Kevin Reilly, who is an NBC
daytime programmer, says that it's simply a matter of looking
at the future and alternate distribution sources.

There is the matter of cutting costs; James Reilly (don't
know if he and Kevin Reilly are related) was given the
job of head writer on both NBC soaps as a cost-cutting
measure (he created Passions).

NBC has had its ups and downs with Days' production company,
Corday Productions, in the past; at one point, Days almost
got away to ABC.

So renewal of Days is not a done deal. Passions, on the
other hand, has struggled from the very beginning in 1999,
its principal strength being among 12-17-year-olds. I
believe SoapNet will begin rerunning it in January, and
right now I, too, am inclined to believe that's the future
for that show.

If Passions goes, NBC's affiliates will no doubt clamor
for the 2-3 PM (ET) slot. If both go, I wouldn't be
surprised to see NBC out of daytime altogether, with
nothing between Today and NBC Nightly News.

But don't expect Days to be canceled before 2007.
 
Brooke Logan Forrester Marone? (was: Re: If soaps are dying...

> Someone raised the point about how many times you can show
> people sleeping around, divorcing, etc., without the
> audience
> becoming bored. I used to tape Bold And The Beautiful but
> got sick of it over one thing: how many times is Brooke
> going
> to go through the Forrester men? Anyone know how many times
> she's been married to Eric, Ridge, and Thorne?


Not to mention that now Nick Marone seems to be her "true love." Never mind that Nick is married to her daughter, Bridget, who is expecting Nick's child.

And don't get me started about how many times both Y&R and B&B can bring back Sheila Carter Grainger Forrester Carter.

Uhhh.... not that I ever see any of these shows or anything. ;)
 
Re: If soaps are dying...

> > ... it will be a sad day for my mother when The Young and
> > the Restless goes. She was a bank teller and scheduled
> her
> > lunch break around it. She's retired now. She's watched
> it
> > from day one. How's Y&R doing lately ratingswise?
>
> Isn't Y&R the longest running soap? (IIRC it came over from
> radio)
>
> -A
>
That would be Guiding Light. As The World Turns also has been on the air much longer than Y&R.

Y&R is still king of the hill in the ratings, though that hill has grown considerably smaller over the years.
 
Re: Brooke Logan Forrester Marone? (was: Re: If soaps are dying...

>
>
> Not to mention that now Nick Marone seems to be her "true
> love." Never mind that Nick is married to her daughter,
> Bridget, who is expecting Nick's child.
>
> And don't get me started about how many times both Y&R and
> B&B can bring back Sheila Carter Grainger Forrester Carter.
>
> Uhhh.... not that I ever see any of these shows or anything.
> ;)
>
Lol, I'm a 35 year old male who used to watch Y&R and B&B faithfully, and catch an episode or two each year now...and still feel like I know exactly what's going on.

As for Sheila though, she may be a nut case, but Kimberlin Brown still makes her a riot to watch. I'd vote for keeping her around just for laughs. I mean come on, if they can make Phyllis and Michael into sympathetic characters, they can find a way to keep ol' nurse wacky on the canvas.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom