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Time for my annual question about Guiding Light

B

bpatrick

As I've started doing every year, I'm wanting to
know: is your local CBS affiliate moving Guiding
Light to the morning (if it hasn't already done so)?
And for that matter, with the show dead last among
the soaps with a 1.5 rating overall and an 0.9 among
women 18-49, is your CBS affiliate dropping the show?

Here in North Carolina, AFAIK it will be business as
usual at 3 PM on all five CBS stations (WFMY, WBTV,
WRAL, WNCT, and WILM), but GL does better down here
than in many parts of the country. I got interested in this
because KDKA/2 Pittsburgh and WJZ/13 Baltimore surprised
a lot of people two years ago by putting GL at 10 AM and
Dr. Phil at 3 PM. Last year, no one moved GL. Since I
consider GL to be a dying soap (I'll be surprised if it lasts
beyond 2009), I'm wondering how many more stations will
move it out of the 3 PM slot.
 
Guiding Light has been on 10AM here in NY since the early part of this decade. They should just put this show out of it's misery. They have less actors then any other soaps, and they have people who don't know how to write a soap. All the good actors are leaving that sinking ship and moving on to All My Children.
 
I, too, would be surprised if it lasted beyond the upcoming season. The time would most likely be given back to affiliates. CBS stations could pick-up Sony's "Dr. Oz" to air in its place.
 
cheffo200 said:
Guiding Light has been on 10AM here in NY since the early part of this decade. They should just put this show out of it's misery. They have less actors then any other soaps, and they have people who don't know how to write a soap. All the good actors are leaving that sinking ship and moving on to All My Children.
Click to expand...

Just recently Beth Ehlers, who played Harley on GL, moved to AMC. Harley
was one of the few remaining characters I cared anything about. Today GL
seems to have turned into Alan Spaulding and a bunch of teenagers I neither
know nor care anything about.

And I know GL airs at 10 AM in New York (I get WCBS on DirecTV); I was
wondering if any stations now running it in the afternoon plan to move it
to morning or drop it altogether.
 
Woah! What has happened to GL? I grew up watching this show 'cause my grandmother was fan. Wasn't it at one time one of the top rated soaps?
 
I could give you several reasons: the real-life death
of Charita Bauer, which necessitated the death of Bert
(no one was going to take over that legendary role);
the writing-out of Mike Bauer's family; the death of
Maureen, Ed's wife and the tentpole character after
Bert's death; the real-life death of Michael Zaslow and
an unsuccessful attempt to replace him as Roger Thorpe;
the San Christobel storyline (I've never known a foreign-
set storyline to work); the firing of Jerry Ver Dorn and
the subsequent death of Ross Marler; the apparent disappearance
of Holly (I think Maureen Garrett is off contract); and a wave
of teens and twentysomethings that have taken over the show.
And now, Beth Ehlers and Ricky Paull Goldin have jumped ship
to All My Children.

I suppose because I'm talking about some of my favorite actors
and characters on the show I picked these as the reasons for
GL's decline. What does anyone else think went wrong?
 
Could it be the horrible story lines or the new format? They are now using hand held cameras and everything is focused on the actors face up close. They are doing this to save money. Also Guiding Light is not ina lot of markets. And some markets like mine they air at 10AM. Which I think is weird for a soap to air.
 
Guiding Light is pre-empted on KOVR Sacramento, and
in Flint it airs on WNEM's digital channel 5.2, but other than
that it is carried in every market, although some do show
it at 10 or even 9 AM (an even weirder time to watch a
soap, if you ask me, but that's the case in Chicago, Boston,
Orlando, Portland, ME, and--I think--South Bend, IN).
 
They are in Jersey, but I don't know exactly where.

GL's new style is different, but quite odd. The average live shot on CNN has a better "look" than GL.
 
CBS may very well do away with "Guiding Light," but I don't necessarily see the network giving the time period to the affiliates, at least not right away. As a rule, or at least in my recent memory, the broadcast networks haven't given up on programming time periods that are cleared by 99 percent of the affiliates. If GL was only cleared by 70 percent of the affiliates, the story might be different.
 
With the way GL has changed in the last year, I would not be surprised if it dies out after next year.

Look at daytime in general.....it's not as good as it used to be. Look at NBC....the network that had a good sized daytime schedule about 25 years ago that had a couple of game shows and three soap operas. Now, all that's left is Days of Our Lives and the four-hour Today show. I wouldn't be surprised if NBC put DOOL out of its misery after 2009 itself, even though the show is still okay from time to time.
 
At least in my neck of the woods GL is staying
put at 3 PM; WFMY, WBTV, WRAL, WDBJ, WSPA,
and WBTW are leaving it alone. But as a CBS
researcher pointed out a few years back when
a rumor got started that WBTV was going to drop
the show: North Carolina and Virginia have GL's
strongest markets.
 
The camera work on the Guiding Light now looks like it was taken with a camcorder at a toddler's birthday party. I don't regularly watch the show (although my grandmother has been following it since the radio days!) but the bit I saw of it recently puzzled me. I saw zoom in shots on the actors' elbows, then back to their faces, and the camera appeared to be moving around enough to give someone with motion sickness a hard time. I need to ask my grandmother what she thinks about the camera work, but she is legally blind so maybe she doesn't notice.
 
Hi everyone:

For those interested, I have a small, modest collection of radio episodes in MP3 from 1950 (As almost any Old Time Radio fan does nowadays). They're available via the Internet Archive here (You'll have to wade your way through some unrelated stuff though).

In addition, just recently, I found some old (And not-so-old) clips of GL on YouTube. You can find those....

VIDEOS
USER CREATED CHANNELS

Enjoy!! :D
 
You know, I honestly wonder the same thing every year as well around here.

WHP in Harrisburg has never moved GL around. I honestly don't see it happening anytime soon if their 10am offering takes off (The Doctors), because if they switched that and GL, it would be right up against its parent show, Dr. Phil, on WGAL.

WYOU in Scranton has aired GL since (I believe) 1996. WTAJ in Altoona still keeps the show at 3pm as well.
 
I'd like to know what really caused Guiding Light's rating to get so low. It was already the last place soap before some of the changes that have been mentioned took place.

As recently as 1992, it had higher ratings than Bold and The Beautiful, One Life To Live and Days of Our Lives. But after that it has always been the lowest rated of the soaps that still air. The only shows that have been lower have been the cancelled shows like Another World, Sunset Beach, Port Charles, Passions etc.
 
That's a really sticky question about whether or not CBS would relinquish the "Guiding Light" time to affiliates if the soap is cancelled. Does CBS have anything in development to fill the time slot (3:00:00-3:57:27 PM ET original feed)?

I remember in the 1970's, in the heyday of "Match Game" and "Tattletales" as afternoon net game shows on CBS running along with the soaps, the Louisville affiliate (then WHAS-TV) cleared the net from 1:00-5:00 PM weekdays...that is, the entire CBS afternoon feed with no delays. Of course, net clearance compensation rates to the stations were substantial and fair then, and stations enjoyed a healthier, more cooperative relationship with their networks.

Nowadays, many stations don't see a dime from their nets for afternoon clearances and station groups have strained relations with their nets, particularly the ongoing sniping between Disney/ABC and their affiliates. To pre-empt or delay anything be ready to surrender an arm and/or leg!
 
The King Bee said:
That's a really sticky question about whether or not CBS would relinquish the "Guiding Light" time to affiliates if the soap is cancelled. Does CBS have anything in development to fill the time slot (3:00:00-3:57:27 PM ET original feed)?

I remember in the 1970's, in the heyday of "Match Game" and "Tattletales" as afternoon net game shows on CBS running along with the soaps, the Louisville affiliate (then WHAS-TV) cleared the net from 1:00-5:00 PM weekdays...that is, the entire CBS afternoon feed with no delays. Of course, net clearance compensation rates to the stations were substantial and fair then, and stations enjoyed a healthier, more cooperative relationship with their networks.

Nowadays, many stations don't see a dime from their nets for afternoon clearances and station groups have strained relations with their nets, particularly the ongoing sniping between Disney/ABC and their affiliates. To pre-empt or delay anything be ready to surrender an arm and/or leg!
Click to expand...

Greensboro's CBS affiliate, WFMY-TV (a virtual clone of WHAS), cleared 10 AM-1 PM, had a local
show, "Sandra & Friends" (hosted by the station's current co-anchor, Sandra Hughes) at 1, then
carried the rest of the CBS schedule from 1:30-4:30, followed by Merv. Eventually they moved
"Tattletales" to 9:30 AM when "Dinah!" came along; they ran her at 4.

In the early '80s WFMY had a g.m. who had come from WCCB, an independent (now Fox affiliate)
in Charlotte, and he seemed determined to run WFMY like an indie. He moved "Guiding Light"
from 3 PM to 9 AM, substituted syndicated shows at 3, and took enough heat to stoke the fires
you-know-where. "GL" soon went back to 3, and WFMY doesn't dare move it again. (You'll still
be getting it at 3 on WLKY as well.)
 
What caused it's ratings to get so low? Because when it went on TV there were two, maybe three networks. Now you have numerous networks, local channels, cable TV, radio, satellite radio, ipods, etc, etc, etc. The pie can only be split so many ways before it collapses.
 
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