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.
General Hospital, Days Of Our Lives, One Life To Live,
and All My Children are also older than Y&R.
Y&R stays at about a 4 rating and there are no plans for
CBS to give it up. But to bring a little perspective
into the current soap situation, I have a book, published
in 1958, titled "A Thirty-Year History of Radio Programs:
1926-1956." It includes ratings, season-by-season for
every network show, daytime and nighttime, through January
1956. At that time, three shows were tied for first among
the radio soaps: Guiding Light, Helen Trent, and Young Dr.
Malone, each with a 4.7 rating. Three others had ratings
better than 4: Ma Perkins (4.5), Nora Drake (4.2), and
Road Of Life (4.1). All were on CBS; NBC's top-rated soap,
Pepper Young's Family, could manage only a 3.1; ABC had
only one, When A Girl Marries (3.2).
As a group, the radio soaps then were doing better than
most current soaps. And this is despite the inroads
of television! But five years later, every radio soap
was history. The advertiser support simply wasn't there anymore.
I don't know how Nielsen counts homes where soaps are taped
and played back later, but I do know that most of the audience
watching when the shows are actually on is over 50. That is
not what advertisers want, any more than they wanted to advertise
on radio instead of the more-effective television a half-century
ago.
So pick up a copy of Soap Opera Weekly, turn to the ratings,
or check a site like
www.soapcentral.com, then decide for
yourself how much longer the genre can last unless iPod or
SoapNet becomes its home.
