Friday, February 23, 2007

GH's Greg Vaughan takes golden "Road to the Oscars"

In honor of this weekend's festivities, and the increasing trend of a heightened media cross-presence for current soap stars, let me draw your attention to Oscar.com's "Road to the Oscars" feature, with multi-media content co-hosted by GENERAL HOSPITAL star, and "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" pitchman, Greg Vaughan ("Lucky Spencer").

[While the logic of hiring Vaughan at Oscars.com, bringing a Kelly Monaco ("Sam McCall," GH) onto Dancing with the Stars, or asking Alison Sweeney ("Sami Brady," DAYS) to host The Biggest Loser, is clearly in the expectation they will bring loyal soap fans along, the chance that this trend may bring a few more eyeballs to daytime, as well, is likely worth the efforts required for a show to work around a multi-tasking star's schedule.]

The site: http://oscar.com/roadtooscars/

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Completely agree, Ben. I used to fear that letting stars do outside projects that could raise their profile was dangerous and would give them itchy feet, but watching Kelly Monaco become a household name on DANCING WITH THE STARS and then resign with GH changed the way I thought about things. The actress respected the medium and the opportunities it gave her, the network respected the situation she was put in and was willing to work to a satisfactory renewal of contract, and I personally know people who have watched GH with me after noticing Kelly Monaco onscreen. If only a handful of those new viewers tune in a second (or third, or fourth, etc.) time, then an industry that can use all the new viewers it can get can only turn out to be the winner.

Anonymous said...

I am so not a fan of Brian Frons over at ABC. He has a lot of successes and only a few mistakes, but the mistakes he makes are always collossal and lacking in common sense (He has an anti-veteran, pro-youth streak that I fear is actually killing his soaps slowly by driving viewer hostility to levels I've never seen.) That said, I give him 100% of the credit in finessing the K. Monaco/DTWS thing from start to finish. Advocating for ABC daytime (and picking Monaco, who had the sports/competitive background to be guaranteed to genuinely work hard to win) to have a spot on that line-up was cross promotional genius. Then making sure that he didn't style a golden goose only to kill it, he personally oversaw protracted, but positive negotiations to keep Monaco on GH. Though many other actors are pulling double-duty here and there, we're seeing a particular focus on this cross-pollination at ABC, with Greg Vaughan being the latest in a series of appealing ABC stars (Cameron Matheson, for example) being sent out, almost as "ambassadors" for the industry, with Fron's blessing. It's a kudo he absolutely deserves, regardless of any other issues I might have with him.

Anonymous said...

Similarly, ABC and CBS have always been good about letting their guys go in PLAYGIRL to promote the shows to two key target audiences: women and gay men. CBS (and also Proctor & Gamble), B&B excepted, is notoriously uptight and protective of its talent, with the idea of one of it's guys posing in a speedo or strategically placed towel being complete anathema (one show on this net has been an exception), as if a star photographed in tighty-whities will somehow bring down the moral fiber of the network. ABC has been practically pimped Playgirl favorites Cameron Mathison, Ingo Rademacher, etc. over the years to great effect (I now watch AMC during lunch with a gay co-worker who literally started watching cold the day after an issue with Cameron Mathison in his underwear arrived at his house, and he's been a daily watcher for the last 10 years since!), and NBC has been responsible for some of the most, er, revealing layouts of the past few years. It's a simple principle that soaps need to look to non-traditional ways to advertise, and getting their "people" (not just vets) in the right places, as hosts of reality shows /or/ Playgirl cover-guys is exactly the way to build up interest in people who might need a little "push" to tune in.

Anonymous said...

Do you think that the fact that the Oscars is on ABC has anything to do with how an ABC soap star is the host of this bonus material? If so, it's another work of marketing shoe leather being done by Brian Frons, but like everything Frons does, it sure is GH-oriented. (And I know as little about Playgirl Magazine as I know a lot about soaps, but any network, producer, or exec who is not throwing their "hottest" stars at that magazine--I'm assuming they don't have to be fully nude if their famous, right?--and any star who's not jumping at the chance to do so, is an idiot. It's a chance to build a secondary cult following among the "pink collar" set, college students, and, presumably, the gays, all natural soap audiences, right?)

Anonymous said...

The key to keeping your young, hot stars is to let them spread their wings enough that they don't feel caged at the soap. Protect them from itchy feet, and you can get your stars to stay for years and years...everybody wins!

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