Last Updated on January 20, 2017
Soap fans are tired of mindless reality and game shows. That’s the message a group called Save Our Soaps is trying to send to CBS, the longtime daytime ratings leader, which in the past two years has announced the cancellations of daytime’s two oldest soaps.
Save Our Soaps is gathering outside CBS’s New York facility on West 57th Street to rally for their shows this Friday.
“They can cancel [the soaps] but there are consequences for doing so. We just aren’t going to take our longtime family leaving us without a fight,” group administrator Sue O’Konis says.
GL, which made its debut in radio in 1937 and on television in 1952, went dark in September of last year after a total of 72 years, making it the longest-running program in broadcasting history.
ATWT, which is currently television’s oldest soap opera, premiered in 1956 and is scheduled to sign off for the last time this September after 54 years.
At the time of its cancellation, Guiding Light was at the bottom of the ratings. As The World Turns has likewise struggled to maintain its audience over the years.
O’Konis says the ratings just aren’t painting a clear picture of what’s really going on.
“The ratings do not include other countries where Guiding Light and As the World Turns air. The Nielsens also don’t take into account the fact that most families have two incomes coming in, and because of this, people don’t watch the shows when they air. The internet replays the episodes for those who work. There is also the fact that most people have DVRs in their homes and can watch these shows at a time that is convenient to them. Unless they get a different ratings system the true audience of daytime soaps won’t be completely counted.”
It’s true that the ratings measured in the United States do not include ratings in other countries. But then, why should they? If you’re an American broadcaster who’s trying to profit from a show through the sale of ads that will air in America on behalf of American sponsors, it doesn’t matter that a foreign country’s broadcast network is doing well with the same show if you’re not getting a piece of that pie.
As for the DVR issue, ratings are beginning to take those into account. The trouble is that advertisers don’t care for DVRs for the same reason they’ve never been fans of VCRs: it’s too easy to fast forward right through their messages. And if you’re an advertiser, why are you going to get excited at the notion that a percentage of the loyal viewers watching the show you’re paying money to advertise in are speeding through your commercial messages without hearing them, you’re not going to be all that happy with the notion of paying up.
That’s not to say that the Nielsen system is perfect: it’s far from it. But until every household with a television set in this country is willing to allow Nielsen to not only attract what’s being watched at every moment — and by whom within that household, including gender and age, we’re never going to have a system that reflects positively what’s truly drawing an audience.
And with so many privacy concerns these days, that kind of permission seems unlikely.
The other reality at work here is the relative cost of producing a soap opera versus a game show. Soaps cost more to produce because of larger writing teams and larger numbers of contract actors. When a network is given the opportunity, in this economy, to produce a game show that might do as well in the ratings as a dwindling soap for a fraction of the cost, it becomes an increasingly attractive idea.
Unless you’re a fan of the show.
CBS tried to retool Guiding Light with a new production model that used small handheld cameras on indoor and outdoor locations rather than expensive all-studio setups, but the shaky quality of that look ran off many fans. It’s ironic that an idea designed to cut costs and save the show actually helped hasten its demise.
“Unfortunately I think some fans desert the show because of the new production. The production was much better toward the end of the show. They would have noticed the difference if they had stuck around a while longer,” O’Konis said.
Still, O’Konis maintains that soap fans are the most devoted of all, and encourages anyone who wants to send a message to put on something red and join the Save Our Soaps group at 2pm outside CBS in New York.
Though at this point, it seems too late for As the World Turns, and certainly for Guiding Light, if enough people get pumped up enough to keep watching their favorite soaps, it could at least keep them on the air that much longer.
