THE LAST "DAYS" OF OUR DAYTIME LIVES?

[bpatrick]

Bill Wolff's voice always reminded me of Chris Schenkel's,
and I mean that as a compliment to both men.  Another
good one on NBC was Mel Brandt, announcer on "The
Doctors" ("The Doctors...dedicated to the brotherhood
of healing.), as well as "GE College Bowl" during its NBC
run.

My personal favorite lineup of announcers was on CBS:

Bern Bennett (Y&R, B&B)
Dan Region (ATWT)
Alan Berns (GL) (he was also College Bowl announcer
 at CBS, either before or after Don Morrow)

I know that Bennett is retired,  and Region writes a newspaper
column and works in little theater in Hudson, NY.  Is Alan
Berns still with us?  I know he also worked at WCBS radio.

[Yeziknoradio]

Bill Wolff's voice always reminded me of Chris Schenkel's,
and I mean that as a compliment to both men.  Another
good one on NBC was Mel Brandt, announcer on "The
Doctors" ("The Doctors...dedicated to the brotherhood
of healing.), as well as "GE College Bowl" during its NBC
run.
My personal favorite lineup of announcers was on CBS:
Bern Bennett (Y&R, B&B)
Dan Region (ATWT)
Alan Berns (GL) (he was also College Bowl announcer
 at CBS, either before or after Don Morrow)
I know that Bennett is retired,  and Region writes a newspaper
column and works in little theater in Hudson, NY.  Is Alan
Berns still with us?  I know he also worked at WCBS radio.

But no one has mentioned the exact ratings point where NBC has no choice but to say good bye to Days, even if it means ending it in the middle the actor's contracts.

1.9 sounds pretty low. Is NBC waiting for the ratings to drop to a 1.5 before any action is taken?

I also hope that in the actor's contracts there's a ratings clause for NBC's sake.

I mean, one that gives NBC the right to cancel Days and pay a fair severance that would be lower than that of a rate that would satisfy a broken contract otherwise.

[easttxtv]

Bill Wolff's voice always reminded me of Chris Schenkel's,
and I mean that as a compliment to both men.  Another
good one on NBC was Mel Brandt, announcer on "The
Doctors" ("The Doctors...dedicated to the brotherhood
of healing.), as well as "GE College Bowl" during its NBC
run.
My personal favorite lineup of announcers was on CBS:
Bern Bennett (Y&R, B&B)
Dan Region (ATWT)
Alan Berns (GL) (he was also College Bowl announcer
 at CBS, either before or after Don Morrow)
I know that Bennett is retired,  and Region writes a newspaper
column and works in little theater in Hudson, NY.  Is Alan
Berns still with us?  I know he also worked at WCBS radio.

But no one has mentioned the exact ratings point where NBC has no choice but to say good bye to Days, even if it means ending it in the middle the actor's contracts.

1.9 sounds pretty low. Is NBC waiting for the ratings to drop to a 1.5 before any action is taken?

I also hope that in the actor's contracts there's a ratings clause for NBC's sake.

I mean, one that gives NBC the right to cancel Days and pay a fair severance that would be lower than that of a rate that would satisfy a broken contract otherwise.

IIRR, NBC cancelled Another World while it was still in the 2's.  It's weird to think that Days' ratings are lower than that now.  Not sure about how NBC would handle a cancellation of Days since it actually doesn't own any of the show (Sony and the Cordays do; almost like with AW, P&G was their owner outright).

[MBird]

Re: announcers and show opens . . . another thought or two.

By the 1990s, the only shows that still had announcers were the P&G shows and the occasional ABC show that was sponsored.  Procter and Gamble Productions seemed to hold on to their charge as the keeper of what we knew as "soap opera".

It's amazing to see how viewer tastes have changed.  The halcyon days of the 1970s and 1980s with expensive on-location remotes, large casts (and salaries), and viewer loyalty is absolutely over - perhaps, forever.  Soap producers have turned to focus groups to help them determine storylines, and then entire schools of soap writing seem to be dictated by actors' TV-Q ratings.

I'll never forget when Jill Farren Phelps was producing Another World, and some focus group recommended that Frankie Frame -- a character that had been around a long time and had been back-burnered -- should be let go.  Frankie was brutally murdered on-screen by some serial killer, in a story that was a ripoff of AW's own Sin Stalker story from just a few years before.  Viewers were upset not just that a longtime character had been sacrificed, but that her death meant nothing except a day's worth of gratuitous violence at lunchtime.

It may sound prudish, but I'm ok when soaps focus on family and romantic relationships.  Against-all-odds obstacles, fine -- but constant "who's the daddy" and "evil twin" stories, though mainstays of the genre, have been run into the ground.  Maybe the genre really is trying to kill itself!  "Serial killer slays daytime".

[bpatrick]

Same thing happened to the character of Maureen Bauer on "GL."
Maureen was the show's moral compass, the character everyone
else could turn to for support or advice.  Actress Ellen Parker wanted
a real storyline (like an affair), but P&G thought viewers wouldn't
accept it.  Finally, as I understand it,  relations between Parker and
P&G reached the point that P&G asked a focus group how it felt
about killing off Maureen.  The group didn't seem to care one way
or the other, so the writers killed her off by having her learn that
husband Ed (a doctor) was having an affair with the hospital's
head nurse, Lillian Raines, and then in her anger drive off and die
in an automobile accident.

Quite a few "GL" fans think this was the beginning of the show's
dive into the ratings tank.

[Russell W.]

It's amazing to see how viewer tastes have changed.  The halcyon days of the 1970s and 1980s with expensive on-location remotes, large casts (and salaries), and viewer loyalty is absolutely over - perhaps, forever.  Soap producers have turned to focus groups to help them determine storylines, and then entire schools of soap writing seem to be dictated by actors' TV-Q ratings.   -SNIP-
It may sound prudish, but I'm ok when soaps focus on family and romantic relationships.  Against-all-odds obstacles, fine -- but constant "who's the daddy" and "evil twin" stories, though mainstays of the genre, have been run into the ground.  Maybe the genre really is trying to kill itself!  "Serial killer slays daytime".

And, with our luck, he'll face a friendly courtroom presided over by Judge Joe Brown.   

Count me as one who has always been skeptical about "focus groups" and "auditorium testing."  Sure, the science behind the polling might be  on the level, but it's easy to 'stack' the room in order to get the "results" the corporate owner desires. 

I've long ago given up hope about daytime TV.  Before long, everything between GMA and the 5 PM news will be nothing but infomercials, court shows and other vide-guano.  Guiding Light is the key .... I suspect nobody wants on their resume the honor of having killed off the oldest soap opera in western civilization.  But once someone steps up to pull that thread, it won't be long until the entire garment unravels.  DOOL is a start ... kill it off, and that might give someone at CBS courage. 

Between low-rated soaps and TPIR (the raging realist in me doesn't hold much confidence in its durability post-Barker), it's only a matter of time. 

Anyone for a little daytime "weed and seed"?   

--Russell

[Morgan Wick]

I've read that Fox has been working on developing a daytime drama of its own. They're going in the wrong direction. At the moment, they're ahead of the curve.

Please, oh please, oh please No More "Reality" Judge/Courtroom Shows. I know the judge in the Anna Nicole Smith trial wants his own show. Please do not give him or any more judges a show!!!!!!

Agreed.  We've got too many Judge Judy/Joe Brown imitators out now. 

I think one of the factors in daytime TV's failures is that its audience has changed.  The audience was once the quintessential stay-at-home mom.  Now it also includes stay-at-home dads, shift workers, and seniors.  More needs to be done to adequately serve the needs of this new audience, but no one's bold enough to take that risk.

But does anyone know HOW?

[kenhawk1160]

But does anyone know HOW?

Quite simple, really.  Stop programming your shows and selling commercials to target women only!  You still have women standing over mops as their cleaning their kitchen floors with a bottle of Future sitting near it. 

Start airing shows targeted to a more general audience, as opposed to women.  Don't make every element of daytime programming gender-biased.

[bpatrick]

I hate to get corny here, but I think one reason
the soaps attracted several generations of viewers
was that people felt they were visiting with friends
each day.  In the classic era (the '50s, '60s, and
'70s) there were little touches that made viewers
feel a bond with the characters.  I'll give you two
examples:

1. Jo and Stu (Search For Tomorrow) used to spend
    an inordinate amount of time discussing plot points
    over cups of coffee.  While this became something
    of a joke, the point is that SFT, for most of its run,
    aired at 12:30 ET/11:30 CT, when many women might
    well be sitting down with a bite to eat and a cup of
    coffee, so they could vicariously share coffee with
    their soap "friends."

2. I once heard a woman who grew up in the '70s say
    that after school she would go to her grandmother's
    until one of her parents picked her up after work.
    Grandma, she said, always had milk and cookies for her.
    At this time of the day Guiding Light was on, and many
    days there would be, on the screen, a little girl about the
    same age as our young viewer, Hope Bauer, at her
    grandma Bert's after school, also enjoying milk and cookies.

Now it's just these little subtleties that touched a chord with
generations, and kept new generations watching (especially
GL).  It also never hurt that the viewer was supposed to feel
superior to the characters (most of us don't have the problems
the characters do), nor that resolutions didn't come in 30 minutes
or an hour (some never do).

But I hardly see the little touches of reality very much anymore,
nor do I think today's viewer has the time or patience to wait
months or years for a storyline to come to an end.  And thus I
don't see the soaps attracting future generations, even if they
all went to the telenovela form.

Unfortunately, if I happen to be in a public place with a television
during the day, it will invariably be tuned to the local Fox channel
(WGHP Fox8), and either a talk or courtroom show is sure to be on.
And I don't think either is going away anytime soon.

As for the soaps, Y&R and B&B are too repetitious (how many times
can Victor lose and regain Jabot, or Ridge and Brooke break up and
get back together anyway?), and the rest rely too much on gimmicks,
some overused (evil twins, characters back from the dead, etc.).
And I'm not looking for Price to last long after Barker's gone.  That
leaves only The View.  Is that where network daytime is going?
One shudders at the thought.

Nope, I'm afraid we're stuck with Judge Judy and Jerry Springer
for the forseeable future.

[imhomerjay]

The challenge facing networks in daytime is no different at its core than at night---there are countless other viewing choices out there targeting every niche, whether its ESPN, Food Network, GSN, Nick, Hallmark, or whatever.  That the overall ratings for soaps are down should be no surprise; the pie is the same, but the slices are smaller.  What constitutes a reasonable success today can't be compared on an apples to apples basis with 5, 10 or 20 years ago. 

I doubt the soap genre is in danger of dying completely in the next generation, but it almost certainly will shrink from the current number of shows.   Whether more talk shows or game shows fill the void, who knows.  Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised to see the return of some type of re-hashed prime-time programming in daytime.  Old Survivor episodes in the daytime anyone? 

NBC could be flirting (if not consumating the relationship) with overkill with the extra Today hour, but the economics make it a reasonable gamble.  The resources are in place, it's the top show in its category...give it a shot, and if it doesn't work, scale back to the previous 19, er, um 3 hours it currently occupies.

As for Passions, I give NBC and DirecTV credit for an interesting publicity stunt, but we're talking about a show that barely registered a pulse with full national distribution, across cable, satellite and over-the-air-only homes.  Does anyone believe it will generate enough revenue being buried on DirecTV's "originals" channel?  Give it a season and call it done.

The Price is Right is a tough call.  If this was 1972, how many people posting on this board would be shouting that Bill Cullen WAS Price, and no version without him will succeed.  Maybe no one can make it work now, but it's possible that with Bob having chosen to leave, they might be able to make a go of it with a new host.