Here are the ratings for the week of Sep 28th to October 2nd, courtesy of SON.
TOTAL VIEWERS #1) Y&R - 4.96 Million (-314,000) #2) B&B - 3.26 Million (-125,000) #3) DAYS - 2.90 Million (+39,000) #4) GH - 2.63 Million (-35,000) #5) OLTL - 2.45 Million (+3,000) #6) AMC - 2.44 Million (-74,000) #7) ATWT - 2.38 Million (-168,000)
It's nice to see OLTL hold steady when everything else dipped.
Not surprised that Y&R crashed. The only way Queen MAB can spike ratings is by killing off legacy characters. In order to grow those ratings, how about we get rid of Victoria next week? She can bore herself to death.
Anyone else find it surprising that B&B does so much better than GH with men, but GH does a lot better better than B&B with women? I would have thought more women would gravitate to the glossy fashion-industry soap and more men would watch the testosterone-heavy, misogynist mob-tacular.
Overall, it's nice not to see OLTL at the bottom of any of the ratings lists.
"A movie is not good because it arrives at conclusions you share, or bad because it does not. A movie is not about what it is about. It is about how it is about it: about the way it considers its subject matter, and about how its real subject may be quite different from the one it seems to provide." - Roger Ebert, from the introduction to "Awake in the Dark" (2006)
I hadn't thought about that, but it's not what I would have expected. I guess men are more drawn to the fact that B&B has long been populated by beautiful women fighting over guys, while GH has a tougher grade of man than the other soaps do, for the most part? Also, demographic of person who seems to me most likely to be drawn to a fashion industry show is not a woman but a gay man.
I wish DAYS had gotten a little more of a bump, since last week was a great lead-up to this week's explosive episodes, but I won't complain. They were the biggest gainer in total viewers last week and the ratings have been pretty steady. I'm interested to see what this week looks like.
I find it a sort of disturbing trend that most soaps tend to lose viewers as the week progresses. Friday episodes used to be can't miss for viewers.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: EmmyLoser,
It's also surprising that the daytime industry is seen as dying, but the lowest rated show currently draws more total viewers than most of CW's pimetime lineup, including "One Tree Hill," "90210," and the much ballyhooed "Gossip Girl," whose stars get media coverage and present awards at the Primetime Emmys. (Yet at the Daytime Emmys on their own network, we were stuck with morons shilling Coldstone Creamery.) Yes, there's a difference in demographics, but I'm sick and tired of demographics. As is 18-49 year olds (or 12-17 year olds or left-handed 20-31 year olds, or whoever the hell they're targeting these days) are the only people who buy things. There's still money to be made here for people willing to put in the work and change with the times. Maybe the "General Hospital: Night Shift" model (smaller casts, 13-episode seasons) is the future of soaps. Or maybe airing the shows once a week instead of 5 days.
I wish someone were being proactive, knocking around ideas, trying stuff out (any by "stuff" I don't mean the incompetence of Ellen Wheeler's production model) instead of letting the same crappy writers spin the same crappy storylines around the same four or five crappy characters year after year after year. But Brian Frons doesn't even want soap operas on SOAPNet anymore; it's hard to be hopeful about the future of an industry run by people who disdain it.
"A movie is not good because it arrives at conclusions you share, or bad because it does not. A movie is not about what it is about. It is about how it is about it: about the way it considers its subject matter, and about how its real subject may be quite different from the one it seems to provide." - Roger Ebert, from the introduction to "Awake in the Dark" (2006)
So right, both of you. NBC has become such a terribly managed network across the spectrum. The desperation of what they did with Jay Leno is obvious, and DAYS is a far more stable franchise than most of what they're airing in primetime. Someone needs to do some major shaking up over there.
Timeslots would definitely be played around with a little. If all soaps can match the ratings of the CW shows during the day, isn't it worth a try to see what they'd do in primetime or even the early evening?
