Guiding Light Discussion Group

Topic: Live without Guilding Light

I have always read quite a bit, and now that GL is off, I do watch ATWT some, but mostly I read.  My husband and I both have a Kindle, the new electronic reader from Amazon, and we absolutely love them.  I am reading "Glorious Cause" by Jeff Shaara at present, about the Revolutionary War.

I do watch Y&R occasionally, but I am not as interested in it as ATWT - and, you might know, as soon as I started watching again, they announced its cancellation.  I will continue to watch until it is off the air.

Pffft...I used to read during commercials!!  I've always read a lot.

But, yes, I do seem to be reading even more since GL is gone.

 I envy you, schuby. I told myself after GL I wasn't going to start watching another soap and that I was going to try to do something more constructive with that time, but instead I just started watching ATWT again along with OLTL. I am such a soap addict I won't be able to stop watching until they're all gone, which might be sooner than later. And yes, I am such a glutton for punishment.

It was never an either/or thing, for me. I was active in my community before & continue to be. I just save $$ on recording soaps, since I stopped doing it sometime ago.

What I really resent is having the likes of P&G and the networks deciding what I can and can't enjoy. If it were golf, basketball, baseball or football they would understand it. But continuing drama w/the stigma of 'soap opera' just doesn't cut it for them!

Replies: (list all replies)

If and when football, basketball, or golf starts losing the networks money, they'll drop them too. Soap cancellations have nothing to do with

Continued....Soap cancellations have nothing to do with

Remember, viewers didn't leave the soaps. Soaps left the viewers. LOL. That has to be the lamest statement ever.

Rose Violet Daisy: Some of those watershed moments that led to low viewership DID involve sports interruptions. After those watershed moments the numbers never bounced back, because fans found other things to do & it was interpreted by TPTB (Corp) as soaps 'dying a natural death' and 'they have run their course'. So yes, sports disruptions DID contribute to the losses that led to the Suits getting the idea that the soap audience wasn't valuable or there. eom

Betsy: You may think that it is a lame phrase, but it is true. It has also been true of actors, particularly actresses. More than one has said 'I didn't leave the industry, the industry left me.' That WAS /IS true for soaps, whether you are talking about the networks or the owners. eom

Sorry RB, but I disagree. Soaps didn't leave the viewers. The viewers left, thus the falling ratings, thus the cancellations. There are so many more choices out there now. There is not ONE daypart that isn't suffering ratings hemmorage. It's not just the soaps. CSI for example has less than half the audience they had 5 years ago. American Idol was down 20% last season from the season before. Did American Idol leave the viewers? LOL.

Gotta say - How long was the OJ Simpson trial on and the soaps off to accommodate it? I almost lost interest myself, but quite a few soap viewers never returned to watching soaps after this giant disrepect to soap viewers by TPTB.........................................maureen1900

Betsy: You are comparing apples to oranges by comparing primetime to daytime. Soaps lost their heart & soul, the concept of a continuing drama is/was a foreign concept to the 'new guard' of TPTB (Corp). THEY set things in motion based on their mistaken ideas about daytime as it applied to primetime. They didn't/don't think that a show can have a run of longer than 5-10 yrs without losing something. Soap fans know differently. They don't 'get' that the soap fans emotionally invest in soap operas in a way that primetime fans don't. Not saying that there aren't passionate primetime fans, but there is an intimacy w/daytime that simply doesn't exist in primetime. The two aren't interchangeable. The audience left daytime, not because there were other/better options, but because soaps lost their direction & what made them watchable. Soaps have always had fans that lapsed & then came back, it is the nature of the genre. But that isn't something Corp. understands or appreciates. To them, lapsed fans are worth even less than the current fans, who they have no respect for. Another aspect that has made soaps unwatchable has been this false idea that the genre needed to be 're-invented'. There was no need to re-invent & 'fix' something that didn't need fixing! Soaps had always been a living, breathing entity that changed, but within perameters that didn't insult the audience! What Corp. wants is the same kinds of numbers primetime gets, on a weekly basis, on a daily one. That is unrealistic. The ONLY episode of ANY soap that ever got a 40 share was the second part of Luke & Laura's wedding! That was over 25 yrs ago, in an episode that had a cameo appearance from Elizabeth Taylor! The idea that ANY soap could maintain those kinds of numbers day in and day out, fifty two weeks a year is unrealistic--to say the least. eom

They say that for someone to change a longterm 'habit', it takes 30 days of going without it. I don't recall the exact length of the OJ coverage, but it was only ONE of many watersheds. The NBC lineup that year took a HUGE hit, because they had OJ coverage, plus the Olympics (2 additional weeks). By the time the soaps came back there, the audience (that was already shrinking) got noticeably smaller. But these were just two of many moments that contributed to the decline of viewership. It started in the mid-80's, when everyone HAD to have location shoots, lovers on the run, etc.--ala GH. Soaps started losing their multi-generational approach to storytelling, but everything sped up in the 90's--especially w/the P&G soaps. In the early 90's, P&G (followed by everyone else) said that budgets were too big, casts were too big, etc. so they started cutting--further damaging the final product. Eventually, the sense of community & multi-generations populating those communities dwindled to nothing. It was no longer about the stories, it was about plot devices & gimmicks. The Suits, who knew nothing about soaps, started having 'recaps' given to the soap magazines, revealing far too much too soon--eventually weakening the storytelling to the point where the audience could tell the end of the story by the first week in! By the statements of various writers during the 90's, it was clear that this was no longer a writer's medium. eom

Rosebud, why aren't you running the networks since you think you know everything? Rolling eyes. Sorry hun but we don't take anything you say seriously.

By the way Rosebud, you are absolutely INCORRECT when you say that they only soap episode that ever got a 40 share was Luke and Laura's wedding. Research it. You are WRONG about that. ATWT got many, many 50 shares, Y&R got over a 40 share many weeks in the late 70's and 80's. As usual, you spout incorrect facts.

Rosebud, I have some FACTS here that totally disprove your statement that the only episode of a soap to get a 40 share was L&L's wedding, part 2. How do you explain that in the November 1979 issue of Daytime TV Magazine, the Nielsen Ratings for Y&R were a 10.5 rating 40 share? That was a weekly average, so the 5 episodes averaged a 40 share. In 1981, GH hit a 40 share or better many weeks. For example, GH had weekly averages of 12.5/41 share, 12.4/40 share and 11.7/41 share. How do you come up with saying that only 1 episode ever had a 40 share? These are directly from the Nielsen Company. Please explain. Thanks.

That was weekly, not on a daily basis. The daily basis is what TPTB (Corp) think soaps SHOULD be pulling in. That is unrealistic, not to mention virtually impossible for any show to sustain! I'm just going by what was published as fact about the 40 share episode. I think it is pretty safe to say that the 40 share hasn't happened in the last 10 yrs for any soap. eom

Nice backtracking, but you are still WRONG when you made the statement that the ONLY episode that EVER got a 40 share was GH. You've been proven wrong, yet again.

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