How to save a soap (Read 489 times)

[DancingDays]

The cancellation of AMC and OLTL has me nervous. The fact that Days is only renewed through 2013 has me terrified. How can we save our Salem family?

I propose going to 3 days a week (M W F) and moving stories quicker. Some days it feels like they had to stretch to fill time anyway, so cut the crap and get moving.

What do you think?

[Kpatch]

Great thread idea DD.

In the olden days, all soaps were 1/2 hour long before they moved to the hourlong format. They could go back to a half hour if they had to.

I would hope that an accessible cable station or other network would pick up Days if it were in danger of being cancelled. There's also the Internet, but if we think Days budget has been cut now, I'm sure it would be cut way more if they went to Internet. I'm sure that the cast would be scaled way back if the show went to online-only.

I hate living from year-to-year never knowing if the show will be cancelled or renewed, but heck that's real life too. My job is like that.

[sportsgirl]

I think all that can be done is what we are already doing... We all still watch the show, we discuss it, give our views and also try to spread the word...Forums like ours are easily accessible & hopefully someone somewhere may read them and hopefully use something that they read. Hey, you just never know!

[Pallison]

I don't believe anything can be done.....soaps are going the way of the dinosaur and that's just the way it is....

[DancingDays]

It IS a format that needs to adapt but I don't think they will all disappear. Half hour shows would be fine. I liked B&B for a long time because its only a half hour. Everything moved so much faster.

[MrsM]

I wouldn't mind a half hour format with each show only focusing on maybe one or two storylines so it doesn't get too choppy.

[fluffysmom]

I wish that people wouldn't quit watching when a favorite character leaves. I wonder how many people left with John and Marlena and haven't returned. That just further damages the ratings. You can ff the stories you don't like if you are recording/DVRing it. I posted something on another thread that is relevant to this one. In SOD recently, the gal who writes the just my opinion column said that she believes that all of the soaps that air onsoapnet will have an increase in ratings when soapnet goes off the air. The reason is that when you watch soaps on soapnet that doesn't count toward the ratings. I am not sure if that is because they are technically repeats when soapnet airs them. After soapnet ends, viewers will be forced to watch or record them on the networks instead. Hopefully she is correct that it will have a positive impact on ratings.

My mother-in-law is very upset that AMC was cancelled. She has watched it for many years.

[sportsgirl]

It could be because of soapnet, but for me watching it on soapnet would be a letdown as it's not in HD.. so recording it on DVD I still get that.

[Kpatch]

I don't like watching on Soapnet as much. Mostly it's not on Soapnet at a convenient time for me.

Some people watch on youtube, which is no help to ratings. Youtube gives viewers an alternative means to keep up with the show. Too bad Nielsen doesn't track the number of views that a video gets.

[DancingDays]

That's the problem with ratings. I don't feel like they accurately (sp?) measure anything. My husband and I were a Neilson family for a week. Only a week. How does that reflect anything?!?

[fluffysmom]

How can anything be measured in a week? That is ridiculous. They don't measure viewing in places like college dorms or soroity houses either. My husband said at his jr college lots of people hung out in the lounge and watched Days and Y&R. None of those viewers are factored in either.