OT: Soaps Are Indeed Dying: As the World Turns Cancelled

The genre that gave DS it's home is indeed dying out. As the World Turns has been cancelled.
Sad news indeed.
10 years ago 11 soaps were on the air~~when World ends, it's down to six.

David

I am really love General Hospital and it's thankful the third highest rated soap as I have watched it almost 18 years!  However, it saddens me to see the genre dying! Thankfully ABC owns their shows so hopefully they will stay on there air for a some years to come!  I watched ATWT at one time so it is very sad til me! OJ is to blame according to many experts because his trial was essential like a soap and that is when ratings went downhill because folks were so engrossed in that drama rama! I hope that Nancy Hughes (who had the first line and is still appears @ 86) gets the final line on ATWT!

Gosh, I am just crushed that ATWT is leaving the air. My mother and grandmother have been watching ATWT since it premiered, so I have grown up with the show and I feel as if characters like Nancy and Lisa are members of my own family! I was a faithful viewer during the show's golden age - i.e. when Doug Marland was headwriter - and kept up with the series on and off since Mr. Marland's untimely death. I became a regular viewer again when the series introduced the Luke-Noah storyline. Truth be told, the show's writing leaves a lot to be desired nowadays and its obvious the series has been affected in every area due to budget cuts. There are still, however, some fine actors on the series and I hope they will get the quality scripts they deserve in the show's final months. I still remember seeing Jerry Lacy as a mysterious man of wealth in the '70's on ATWT - Margaret 'The Wicked Witch of the West/Miss Gulch' Hamilton played his "girl Friday". I also recall episodes with Donna Wandrey as the original 'Barbara Ryan'. I hate that - one by one - the soap genre is dying. I've read that the networks will lease their daytime spots to syndicated programming like all those trashy 'Real Housewives of...' shows. I'll take ATWT on its worst day over that Housewife crap!

Please guys forgive me for my writing/spelling apparently I was drunk or something.....??  I wasn't really but I don't know what was up with that.  I agree with you Marky Boo!  I would take the soaps any day because all this cheap BS (Let's Make A Deal) is beyond annoying.   As I said it's good that the ABC soaps are owned by the network. That helps a lot in the long run with licensing fee's etc.  I also think that Y&R and B&B will be fine for years to come as well as they are the number one and two soaps, respectively!

I'm not sure about the future of Y & R or B & B. Y & R now gets a 3.5 rating~~when DS was in danger of cancellation pre-Barnabas, it was getting a 4.3!
B & B usually gets a 2.2
Even the top soaps are in big trouble these days!

David

Yeah it was getting a 4.3 but that was unacceptable back then because soaps were big draws. Soaps aren't expected to get huge viewership now and that is why budgets have been slashed so much to keep them on the air. Regardless time will tell!  

I wasn't really a soaps person, but I used to spend summers with my aunt who was an avid soap watcher. I wasn't the kind of kid who took naps in the afternoon, so while my cousins were napping, my aunt Vera and I were big on Ryan's Hope and ATWT.  Those were some great memories circa 1975... ABC definitely has the advantage on its soaps, with Soap Net channel it can show umpteen re-runs of current and old soaps. I know a few years back they were showing RH on Sundays... I caught myself channel surfing and stopping there for a while... Really I was just waiting for Kate Mulgrew to show up! Strange that syndication never caught on for other soaps besides DS. Glad for us though somebody had the inclination to syndicate DS or we probably wouldn't be here right now!!

RQ

They still run Ryan's Hope early in the morning. I think @ 5 AM!

An interesting rebuttal: EDITORIAL: Why Soaps Are NOT Dying?

And I have to say that I do agree that some fans are watching their soaps in completely different ways from simply sitting down in front of their TVs when their shows actually air - or even watching them on DVR, videotape, or SoapNet. I know about a dozen fans who download the torrents of their favorite shows and watch them on their computers. That type of viewing isn't counted by anyone - but it's the way they chose to do it...

If they could somehow count those torrents on the ratings I think they would.  Someday they probably will. Surely they track it for curiosity's sake.

As a former Nielsen household, I know that anything you DV-R is now counted in the ratings if you watch it within 7 days of the original broadcast date.

ON AMC's 40th Celebration on THE VIEW did anyone hear Whoppie mention Dark Shadows and that she ran home to watch DS and AMC!  And she said those were the days when VAMPIRES were VAMPIRES! I tend to tape historical stuff like that even though I don't watch AMC! 

Whoopie is cool like that! I've heard Kelly Ripa mention DS a few times over the last couple of years.  Said she watched it as a kid (mostly under the covers because it was so scary!) 

Whoopie is cool like that! I've heard Kelly Ripa mention DS a few times over the last couple of years.  Said she watched it as a kid (mostly under the covers because it was so scary!)  

That musta been in repeats, she was born in '70.
Also thanks for the intel on the DVR recordings, I've wondered about that--

Yea, that was probably in the early 80's when many of us youngins were introduced to DS through syndication and then later VHS.

ON AMC's 40th Celebration on THE VIEW did anyone hear Whoppie mention Dark Shadows and that she ran home to watch DS and AMC!  And she said those were the days when VAMPIRES were VAMPIRES!

Here's a topic about it:

DARK SHADOWS mentioned on THE VIEW

I think ABC only archives a week's worth of shows, but Joe still has the clip on fb.