Soaps on the Ropes? Broader Impact of Falling Soap Ratings Explored

John Consoli of MediaWeek authors "Soaps on the Ratings Ropes," exploring the changing soap ratings landscape. As a long-time industry watcher, I wish the piece had included some historical context (the advent of alternative cable programming, the year's worth of O.J. trial pre-emptions) that would have been helpful, and explored the highly relevant question of what channels like SoapNet have done for overall ratings (I would be very interested in knowing what GENERAL HOSPITAL's ratings come to when you combine the ABC showing with the ratings for each of the SoapNet repeats), but it does tackle the subject in a balanced way, noting that while soaps may not pull in the viewers they once did, they still are an efficient way to reach a valued audience, and for that reason, still draw advertisers. It's worth a read.

[Editor's Question: The ratings numbers/trends regarding the shows which have benefited from the inclusion of college students are practically the polar opposites from those featured in this Variety story a few weeks ago. If anyone knows the reason for this discrepancy, e-mail me at the address to the left.]

A substantial excerpt of the full article:

Daytime soap operas on the broadcast networks have continued their steady audience decline this year, drawing concern from media buyers who say there are still a large number of clients that want to reach the shows’ largely female viewership. But some nets at least are doing something about it.

While NBC announced earlier this year that after eight years it will pull the plug on PASSIONS this fall, the network will stick with DAYS OF OUR LIVES. And both CBS and ABC insiders say they are committed to keeping their combined seven soaps on the air. But despite the networks’ commitments, the audience shortfalls, combined with advertiser demand, have tightened the avails and driven up prices.

“We always hate paying more for less,” said Andy Donchin, executive vp and director of national broadcast for Carat USA.

“Daytime ratings are bleeding and it’s a problem for advertisers,” added Rino Scanzoni, chief investment officer for GroupM, who said he wants soaps to survive, “It’s an efficient way to reach women, and if they go off the air, I can’t think of any efficient alternatives.”

Donchin agreed. “Even though I am concerned about audience falloff, it hasn’t reached a point where our clients would abandon the daypart,” he said, “The total number of viewers each day is still substantial when compared to alternatives like cable or syndication.”

To read the full article, go here.

R.I.P. DAYS' Edward Mallory

14-year DAYS OF OUR LIVES veteran Edward Mallory has died at 76, after a long illness.

Best known for playing Doctor Bill Horton on NBC's DAYS OF OUR LIVES from 1966 to 1980, Mallory also guest-starred on many television shows and directed episodes of other soaps.

Soaps' New Media Ventures: Coming of Age?

Business Week asks, "Can producing soap operas for online viewers breathe new life into daytime programming?" in Tom Lowry's piece 'As The World Wide Web Turns':

In late February, CBS launched a Web-only soap opera called L.A. DIARIES it hopes will attract young women. The nine episodes are
streamed for about six minutes a pop on the network's innertube.com site.

The action centers on "Amber [Moore Forrester," portrayed by Adrienne Frantz], an existing character on THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS, and on "Alison [Stewart," portrayed by Marnie Schulenburg], a new character who emerged from the cyberspace soap on Mar. 21 to play an actual role on TV in AS THE WORLD TURNS [Soappipe editor's note: "Alison" is actually a long-running character on ATWT, recently recast and reintroduced via Diaries].

It's a fresh approach to creating buzz for a TV staple, and other network executives will be watching closely. Rival networks are trying to get kids to watch old daytime melodramas such as GENERAL HOSPITAL and DAYS OF OUR LIVES, shows their mothers or grandmothers might have watched.

Few genres have demonstrated more staying power than the soap opera. More than half a century after first airing alongside the detergent commercials that gave them their name, soaps still captivate millions of mostly women fans. No matter how preposterous the dialogue or cheesy the plot lines, soaps have, in modern parlance, a "stickiness" that many prime-time dramas can only hope to achieve.

Characters like newspaper publisher "Victoria Lord Davidson" [portrayed by Erika Slezak] of ONE LIFE TO LIVE (who made her debut on the show in 1968) have been on the tube for so long that they can seem like old friends. "I feel I really know them," says Antonella Cahill, a 40-year-old Philadelphia secretary and soap fan who named one daughter after the scheming "Nikki Newman" [portrayed by Melanie Thomas Scott] of Y&R and the other after GH's "Tiffany Hill" (who married and left beloved Port Charles years ago).

Even better, as far as soap fans are concerned, the networks don't stint on new episodes; last year, ABC rolled out 251 new GH episodes vs. 23 new DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES shows.

But even as the shows' stars age gracefully (cue makeup, soft focus, and cosmetic surgery), there is no hiding the graying of their fans.
There are new plot devices and characters--a teen girl's right to choose, for one--calculated to appeal to young women. Even so, most soap devotees are well over 50. Meanwhile, over the past decade, viewership has fallen 35%, to 30 million viewers a day. Hence the networks' eagerness to reimagine the soaps for a new generation.

It goes without saying that the Web is where the action is, but so far the networks haven't been able to win the digital rights to put them on their own sites. Until ABC, NBC, and CBS hammer out a deal with the production companies that make the soaps, few will be available to download or stream. [Soappipe editor's Note: NBC streams PASSIONS daily on NBC.com.]

There's plenty of upside in getting the deals done. Media consultant Tom Wolzien figures there are more than 20 million women in the workplace with broadband access. So streaming shows live to computers could double the potential audience for soaps. If you got just 5% of those working women to watch, Wolzien calculates, the networks could reap an extra $230 million a year in advertising.

In the meantime, the networks are taking baby steps online. SoapNet, the Walt Disney Co.-owned channel that shows soaps at night for working women, sponsors online soap fantasy leagues. Participants rack up points when characters they have picked for their team take off their shirts, say, or switch the paternity-test results. Still,
the players number less than 30,000. The channel is also asking college kids to create their own soaps and put them to the vote at soapnet.com. Even CBS's GUIDING LIGHT is getting in on the act, podcasting the show, which began life on radio in 1937. [Soappipe editor's note: ATWT also is available as a streaming podcast each day.]

If the soap opera is to be around for another half-century, the networks will have to make converts of a generation with a thousand more entertainment choices than their grandmothers.

"The constant," says Barbara Bloom, senior vice-president for daytime programming at CBS, "is making viewers always feel emotionally involved in the story."

• Read the Business Week story in its original form here.
• See L.A. DIARIES, featuring Y&R's Amber and ATWT's Alison here.
• View full-episodes of PASSIONS (and check out a variety of interactive web content related to the supernatural soap) on-line here.
• Interactive content for DAYS is here.
• Download GL and ATWT podcasts here. Additional web content for CBS Daytime is here.

NBC, FOX Announce Deal With Internet Leaders AOL, Yahoo! To Create Online Video Site

Proposed venture set to rival YouTube.com, and be eventual web home for NBC and FOX programming (short- and long-form content), including current NBC serials. More details here.

ABC's Frons: "Do you say to a woman ‘I’m going to divorce you in two years’ and expect them to still sleep with you?"

Anne Becker of Broadcasting & Cable talked to Brian Frons, President of Daytime for the Disney-ABC TV Group, resulting in some very revealing observations on ABC Soaps, SoapNet, and more (including whether ABC would buy a cancelled DAYS OF OUR LIVES):

On GH’s Sweeps Performance: “GENERAL HOSPITAL took a very unique creative approach and the audience….went, ‘wow, we have never seen that before.’ GH led in every major female demographic from teens, 18-34, 18-49 and 25-54 women [and] that’s the first time GH has ever done that and the second time I think it’s ever been done that at all.”

On the Daytime Emmy Nominations: “If I had a disappointment it would be that GH did not get a nod for best show and it’s interesting because the writing was nominated, Tony Geary, Genie Francis and Julie Berman were featured in the November episode the show submitted for best show and were all recognized and so was the director somehow the show wasn’t.”

“I’m very pleased particularly for ONE LIFE TO LIVE...It’s OLTL first Best Show nomination since Frank Valentini took over in early 2003.“

On the Cancellation of PASSIONS: “[PASSIONS] was a show that had a strong heartbeat a few years ago, they went from being a very young-targeted show to trying to spread their demographic to going back to who they were and I think they lost some people in the zigging and zagging and it cost them.“

On a Possible DAYS Cancellation: “NBC…has had the weakest commitment to daytime historically. When Jeff Zucker announced that DAYS may go away in 2009, you can track the ratings from that point and see they probably lost 25% of their audience on NBC Daytime...do you think you can turn to a woman and say, ‘I’m going to divorce you in two years’ and expect them to still sleep with you? I say no. So, they sort of broke the contract and I think it’s the opposite for us.”

On whether ABC would buy a cancelled DAYS: "The success of ABC soaps on ABC would really prevent us from picking up DAYS for ABC and I don’t know that when the time comes for DAYS and NBC to part ways that we’ll have an economic model that will make it practical to put on SoapNet. Otherwise, I would certainly consider it."

On Future Plans for SoapNet: “We have two shows in development now in the reality soap genre - a la Laguna Beach and The Real Housewives of Orange County [and] we bought ONE TREE HILL and THE OC. SoapNet really needs to be a channel that stays contemporary in terms of delivering all soap experiences to the consumer.”

On MyNetworkTV’s failed telenovela slate: “They went into time periods and stations that were not in the soap opera business in daytime or primetime so I think the soap opera audience was not looking to those channels for soaps. To get a soap opera audience, you really have to spend some time with them, give them a chance to sample the product, and have the patience for them to get caught up in it. Unlike traditional novelas, which can last six months to a year, these were only 13 weeks. Almost by time you figured out who everybody was, it was over and that may have been a stumbling block to them.”

On AMC’s “risk taking” and the current transgender storyline: “Part of the audience is passionately approving what we’re doing and there’s a portion that aren’t embracing it with the same excitement. That story was conceived with a finite ending. We wanted to introduce the character and explore the issue and create a relationship with Zoey and Bianca and we’ve had a chance to do that. The storyline will be over by end of April.“

On the Firing (and Potential Re-Hiring) of former AMC Headwriter Megan McTavish: “Megan was somebody who took great risks and was innovative yet at the same time very true to the heart and soul of ALL MY CHILDREN. Turning out 250 hours of television a year was a grind and she had been doing it for a while. I’ve actually told her that after she takes a little time off, I would be more than happy to hire her as a story consultant."

(read the full interview, and Frons's take on Rosie O'Donnell and The View, here)

DAYS Wedding: Not Just Green, It's Interactive

Beginning this week, through April 14, fans of NBC's DAYS OF OUR LIVES can vote online at NBC.com/days to help select the special gifts that Sami Brady (Allison Sweeney) will receive from her family and friends on her wedding day.

DAYS fans have the unique opportunity to be part of Sami's wedding by voting multiple times for their favorite elements that will be incorporated into her "green wedding" by logging onto NBC.com/days.

Over the next few weeks, viewers will be able to choose from the following categories once a week: something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue...and in a unique twist to tie in with Sami's "green wedding" her friends and family will get her something green!

The special items that are chosen by viewers will be given as gifts by Sami's friends and relatives on-screen: Something old from Caroline (Peggy McCay), something new from Hope (Kristian Alfonso), something borrowed from Marlena (Deidre Hall), something blue from Chelsea (Rachel Melvin) and something green from Kayla (Mary Beth Evans). And, all the gifts will be eco-friendly and fans will get to see their choices on air.

NPR's 'Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me' Turns its Satirical Eye on Daytime

Daytime continues to show it still has the stuff of the zeitgeist, finding itself featured this week as a topic on NPR's hit comedy gameshow Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me.

The celeb-studded Wait, Wait... (which bills itself as "the oddly informative news quiz") turns a satirical and side-splitting eye on current events each week. The show has a regular segment called "Bluff the Listener" where a listener-contestant is given details of three potential news stories based on a similar theme and asked to determine which is real.

This week's theme was "Daytime TV to the Rescue" and featured three "potentially" true news accounts of "do-gooders on the daytime dial," including:

• DAYS OF OUR LIVES choosing to throw an environmentally friendly wedding for characters "Sami Brady" and "Lucas Roberts," played by actors Alison Sweeney and Bryan Dattilo, complete with biodegradable party favors, as a way of raising viewers' environmental consciousness.
• Talk show hostess Kelly Ripa (ex-Hayley Vaughn Santos, ALL MY CHILDREN) claiming "cuteness" gets no respect to a weekly magazine, dissing Charlie Gibson, and proposing an "attractivness onslaught," led by Anderson Cooper, Reese Witherspoon, and the cast of NBC's HEROES--all capable of proving just how intelligent "cute" can be.
• GENERAL HOSPITAL, home of Luke and Laura (who panelist Charlie Pierce describes as "the hairstyles that did so much for daytime in the 70s") seeking to raise public awareness of holistic medicine by adding a character, "Dr. Sanjay Prada," who is specialist in Eastern Medicine--and facing protests from the evangelical right in the process.

Readers of Soappipe, of course, know that the correct answer is DAYS's upcoming "green wedding," and that the others came from the show's very creative imagination. Sadly, the listener-contestant did not, incorrectly identifying the made-up GH alternative medicine story as the correct one.

(More on Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me here.)

DAYS's Sweeney 'Takes to the Floor' in Hollywood

From the UK's Daily Record:

"DONCHA wish Carmen Electra could keep on her feet? The ex-Pussycat Dolls stunner came a cropper while hosting a charity fashion show in Hollywood.

She was closely followed by on the deck by US soap star Alison Sweeney, who took an even more spectacular tumble.

The DAYS OF OUR LIVES actress was left sprawling full-length on the floor and the two ended up looking more like fashion victims than icons."

Editor's note: I saw the footage last night on Keith Olbermann's show, and I can absolutely say that Sweeney and Electra showed everyone present exactly how to recover from an embarassing moment--with big, beautiful smiles and a laugh all around.

RIP: DAYS's Lanna Saunders

From the Associated Press and Los Angeles Times:

Lanna Saunders, best known for her long-running role as "Sister Marie Horton" on DAYS OF OUR LIVES has died. She was 65.

"As an actress, as well as a person, Lanna Saunders had an elegance and grace that bespoke the deepest qualities of her soul which made her character, 'Sister Marie,' honest and believable, yet so easy to look at," said Ken Corday, executive producer of DAYS.

Sanders joined the DAYS cast in 1979. She left the show in 1985, after being diagnosed with MS in 1982.

(more)

DAYS Invites Viewers to Daytime's First 'Green Wedding'

Whatever love DAYS OF OUR LIVES isn’t getting from the Emmys this Spring is likely to be more than made up by goodwill from environmentally conscious soap fans.

When DAYS’s resident bad girl “Sami Brady,” portrayed by Alison Sweeney, finally makes it down the aisle (which is not to say she will actually make it through the ceremony…the character has been left at the altar too many times to count) with soulmate “Lucas Roberts” (Bryan Dattilo), the nuptials will be chock-full of what the show is describing as “earth-friendly elements."

Executive producer Ken Corday, points to Al Gore's Academy Award winning global-warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth as an indicator of a growing consciousness of environmental issues by the general public. A higher profile for environmental concerns is also an opportunity for DAYS and the soap industry, Corday said, to "fall in step in helping to raise the viewers' consciousness of certain environmental problems and solutions.”

Partnered with DAYS in putting together the fictional ceremony—set to feature pesticide-free flowers and biodegradable wedding favors—are organic chef Ben Ford (son of actor Harrison Ford) and wedding Web site TheKnot.com.

Wanna Be A Soap Star? Get in line (literally...)! Open Casting Call Dates Announced

SoapNet and show producer LMNO Productions have announced the open casting call schedule for season 4 of their reality show I WANNA BE A SOAP STAR.

Contestants who make it through the first round of casting calls will receive a call back and a plane ticket to Los Angeles for call backs with host Cameron Mathison ("Ryan Lavery," ALL MY CHILDREN) on April 1. Series executive producers Eric Schotz and Lisa Bourgoujian will also attend the casting sessions.

As previously reported, this seasons winner will receive a 13-week contract role on NBC's DAYS OF OUR LIVES.

The Casting Calls:

MIAMI - Open Auditions 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. ET
Saturday, March 17
SONESTA HOTEL & SUITES COCONUT GROVE
2889 McFarlane Road; Coconut Grove, FL 33133

NEW YORK - Open Auditions 9 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. ET
Saturday, March 24
The View Stages
320 West 66th Street New York, NY 10023

LOS ANGELES - Open Auditions 9 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. PT
Saturday, March 31
ABC Prospect Studios
4151 Prospect Avenue
The Rehearsal Hall
Los Angeles, CA 90028

(Contestants are encouraged to go to

Hey, Nice Shout-Out! (and we don't believe for a moment that he's dead either...)

In a recent blog post, "The Captain America Death Scam," comic book fan Mikey Mason, delivers this GREAT retort to NPR (and other media) coverage of the "death" of Marvel Comic mainstay Captain America:

"Sure he's dead. And Roman Brady from DAYS OF OUR LIVES was
dead, too. But then he came back after amazing reconstructive surgery, and reestablished his life with his widow, only that wasn't really him, it was a brainwashed John Black, who worked for Stefano Dimera, only to find out that he wasn't the real Roman Brady when the real Roman Brady returned, so he joined forces with the real Roman Brady to try and take down Stefano Dimera, even though they were still wooing the same woman, Marlena (Roman's wife, who thought that John Black was Roman, too.)"

ALSO: Check out an old blog post on CBS.com by AS THE WORLD TURNS's Van Hansis ("Luke Snyder"), in which he draws upon his passionate comic book-fandom to draw parallels between ATWT and the popular Marvel Comic's "X-Men" series. (you'll need to scroll down to the entry marked 'Blog 11.0: June 19, 2006')

Soap Star #4 Updates: DAYS Scribe Judges, This Time YOU Decide

More on SoapNet's 4th season of it's popular reality show I WANNA BE A SOAP STAR: The show will continue in it's successful format, and with popular host Cameron Mathison, but will feature a new judge at the table with consummate soap insider Michael Bruno, and veteran actress Debi Morgan ("Dr. Angie Hubbard," ALL MY CHILDREN, "Dr. Ellen Burgess," PORT CHARLES, GENERATIONS, BOLD AND BEAUTIFUL, etc.), new DAYS OF OUR LIVES (and AS THE WORLD TURNS turn-around magician) Hogan Sheffer.

Sheffer (seen right), a large personality with a colorful vocabulary to boot, should make for some interesting TV, without a doubt, and the way he'll gel personally with equally large personalities Bruno and Morgan is an uncertain prospect at best. However, Sheffer's inclusion as a judge, a first for any soap head writer as well, will be particularly interesting this season as the winner and audience knows that the prize of a 13-week contract with DAYS, and where that small stint has the potential to go long-term, will ultimately fall into the hands of Sheffer himself.

What will not fall into Sheffer (or any of the judge's) hands is the selection of this season's winner. Following significant fan outcry from last year's selection of Mikey Jerome as show winner, fans will, for the first time in the show's history, now be the ones who select the winner from the show's two finalists.

WANNA BE...SOAP STAR #4 Earn 13 Weeks of DAYS

ALL MY CHILDREN's Cameron Mathison can continue to add "soap starmaker" to his ever-growing resume. As reported in Daily Variety:

"SoapNet has ordered a fourth season of the reality contest I WANNA BE A SOAP STAR and this time, the winner will wind up on NBC's DAYS OF OUR LIVES.

It's the first time the Disney-owned cabler has featured a non-ABC sudser on 'I Wanna Be a Soap Star' .... "

(read the full article here)

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/

ABC announces soap-free DANCING WITH THE STARS

This week, ABC announced the celebrity line-up for the upcoming season of Dancing with the Stars and for the first time in four seasons, the contestant roster will not feature a soap star among their ranks. Previous seasons have featured GENERAL HOSPITAL's Kelly Monaco ("Sam McCall," ex-"Livvie Locke, PORT CHARLES), the first season winner, DAYS OF OUR LIVES star (and SoapNet host) Lisa Rinna (ex-"Billie Reed"), and Saved by the Bell's Mario Lopez (under contract as "Dr. Christian Ramirez" at the time of his selection for Dancing).

While the season's likely surefire inspirational favorite, Heather Mills McCartney (an amputee who will compete using a prosthetic leg), did play herself on DAYS in a one day appearance to counsel Kyle Brandt's "Philip Kirakis" (a core character who lost a leg serving in Iraq), one can't help but wonder if message board protests--and several comments by first season runner-up John O'Hurley--that the passionate loyalty of soap opera fans led to block voting and disproportionate success by Monaco and Lopez (Rinna did not make it to the final dance-off) was a factor. [Monaco countered the accusation on CNN's Larry King Live, pointing out that while GH averages 3 million or so viewers, O'Hurley is best known for Seinfeld, which consistently drew 5 or more times GH's numbers and has a passionate fan base of its own.]

Alas, another possibility is that, having utilized soap talent to lure a core base of fans for what was initially an uncertain proposition, the Dancing brass has decided they no longer need the soap community and have decided to look beyond the "soap level" for their celebrities. If so, that would be a shame...

DAYS's Sweeney to pull double duty as reality host

An NBC-Universal press release notes that DAYS OF OUR LIVES star Alison Sweeney ("Sami Brady") will replace actress/comedienne Caroline Rhea as host of the fourth season of the network's reality show The Biggest Loser.

The release specifically notes the passion and loyalty of Sweeney's soap fan base as a factor in the decision to replace Rhea with Sweeney, with the network clearly hoping to benefit from new sampling of Loser by soap opera fans.

Sweeney blogs about her new role on her NBC blog, noting that her hosting duties will correspond with an increasingly complex story for Sami.

Update: In an interesting note, Sweeney tells Soap Opera Digest that Loser will be scheduling around the DAYS schedule and not vice-versa, "They have agreed to work around my DAYS schedule, so....it's not going to change my shooting schedule or my DAYS storyline." Sounds like a welcome measure of accomodation by NBC and Loser for the daytime medium, star, and fan-base they hope to mine for new viewers. Is it a small, but good sign for DAYS future prospects?