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Find out more information on ratings and their effect on your favorite shows here!
There is an extensive list of all the soaps ratings year to year since their beginning in the 1950's. Read through them and get a feel for where the decline happened and more.
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POSTED:DECEMBER 17, 2007
[The Real Reason Behind the Ratings]
an article by a Marketing Specialist
To share a little bit more about myself as the creator of this site along with many others out there, I am a Marketing Specialist but an artist at heart. However, my years of learning and applying within the Marketing field has taught me many things. I begin today by somehow reaching out to the community that I have been part of for nearly 12 years...the world of daytime. There are many changes, highs and lows, and just plain nonsense in the world of daytime dramas, but perhaps the biggest issue at hand today is ratings. Ratings seem to drive the forces behind our favorite shows and in many cases in ways we do not like. I am going to share with you my professional take on this issue and perhaps widen the scope of the world of daytime just a little bit for all the doubters out there.
To start off I would like to explain the photo choice in the banner at the top of this blog. I believe it captures the essence of what is "deemed" wrong in today's daytime world, but in particular, All My Children. The actors/actresses portrayed above are not the problem however, but the characters that I will get into. For you see we have new characters, replacement characters, and veterans across the board. The most recent being a recast with a veteran returning, hello Greenlee! Now the blame game has already begun on this topic at hand and I believe it is a great place to start discussing just why ratings rule our shows.
Why Ratings are so Important
Ratings are those little numbers that matter in a big way. They determine how many people are watching, where they are coming from, demographic information and more. If the number slips in a dramatic way, the very way the daytime shows have slipped, writers and producers have to resort to different methods to help gain the audience back. Some solutions are drastic and our favorite actors are given the boot. Some are great with the return of faces we have nearly forgotten. In the end people forget the extreme pressure of increasing ratings. The goal is always to attract as many viewers as possible, and when those viewers are heading elsewhere, networks are at a loss.
Where are the Viewers Going?
I know the first thing viewers do in this rating crisis is panic and blame the wrong people. I find it interesting how viewers are angry at the outcomes the writers and producers have had to reach to increase ratings. "I'll stop watching the show if this happens!" is all I ever hear and the reality of it is that is the worst thing you can do as a viewer of your show.
Think about it for a second. There is already a slip in viewership, and the writers have decided to increase ratings they will kill off the majority of the viewers favorite character. In return, the majority of those viewers who just lost their favorite character vow to never return to watch the show ever again. Now the writers are right back where they started and another drastic action takes place. The fact is, if you are loyal to the show and wish for it to continue, you watch it regardless of the horrific things the writers dish out.
That being said, I think we should evaluate just where the viewers are going. I don't think that any of the networks have really looked at this reason, otherwise they would realize it isn't just new characters and boring storylines changing the ratings. Hold your hats folks because the number one reason for the rating changes are lifestyle changes. A shocker I know, but really look at this. Soaps have graced our entertainment world for nearly 50 years. They had a steady increase of ratings, had their prime moments, and now they are on a steady decline. Why you ask? More people are leaving the home in the mid-morning to provide for the ever climbing cost to survive on this planet. People in jobs just like mine are fighting a battle to reach audiences that have made it difficult to reach them. Many work 9-5, many don't. In the end the majority of us aren't around to tune into a daytime lineup anymore.
The next thing to note is that even if we do have the time to watch these shows, we are losing long term viewers as they age and the future generations haven't lived through the daytime soap world like its predecessors. People evolve, and change. I think we can all see that nothing lasts forever and nothing stays the same. The soap world may soon be a casualty to this evolution, but in the meantime it is just one more reason that ratings are taking their nosedive. Your grandma may have grown up with a soap everyday and passed it on to your mother, but did your mother pass it on to you? If your answer is no, how many others are no. Each generation of no takes audiences away from soaps.
Time Frame Rating Drops:
1980's small decline
1990's medium decline
2000's major decline
The time frames above indicate a major slip in the ratings. Can you think of anything during those decades that would cause these declines? Of course. Each of these decades brought us interruptions in the daytime schedule for the daily trials and tragedies of the decades. Big things were happening and continue to happen that take daytime audiences away from the fake dramas and into the real ones.
Any Hope for a Solution?
I would like to be the spokesperson for optimism here, but I won't lie, the soap world is on a short thread. However, it isn't dead yet and careful attention and planning can send the ratings into an upswing. It is going to take the right people who recognize just why the ratings have fallen, and it won't be easy. Too many times viewers don't understand these reasons and blame the powers that be. Too many times a character has evolved into something viewers don't like and they switch off their televisions only adding to the problem. Too many times we don't stop to really get it. We don't get the fact that change happens and viewers come and go just as often as our favorite characters and storylines.
So, there you have it. A look into ratings and why they are in the slump they have been in for quite some time. Before you click your shows off in a rage, think about what you really want out of it. It isn't easy being on the end to keep stories interesting, characters fresh, and a dwindling audience coming back everyday. Our lives our evolving at a rapid pace, why wouldn't the daytime world evolve too? Veterans make the show, but the same old stuff doesn't. The day the writers find a happy balance and the world stops spinning is the day you have the ratings back on track. The questions is if it is possible in today's world.
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