GH might have lost 300,000 viewers from 2 months ago but how did the other soaps do in the same 2 month period?So GH may have lost 300,000 viewers in the last 2 months but the other soaps may have lost more.So it could be interesting to find out over the last 2 months how many viewers the other soaps lost too.Plus GH is in 1st or 2nd place in all the key demos.Plus earlier this year there was that cold front that hit the U.S.that kept most people inside and had them watching soaps.Plus all 4 went down last week.I know there were weeks when GH was the only soap that went down and some weeks when they were the only soap that went up.

Here’s the problem Andrew, There’s no point to comparing GH to CBS soaps and their being up or down? They are doing bigger numbers than GH and they aren’t on a network that may cancel them. They have nothing to prove.

Here’s the bottom line, 2.7 million total viewers is not a good number for GH. It is worse when they were at 3 million. And the 3 million was still a lot lower than the CBS soaps.The CBS soaps are still over 750,000 to 1.7 million higher in viewers.

It doesn’t matter what is going on over at CBS or NBC for that matter. GH needs to be profitable to stay on the air and if it continues along the same trajectory it won’t be. I wouldn’t worry about the other soaps and look for comparisons because ABC doesn’t care about them. They care about the ability to sell enough advertising at higher enough rates to make a profit on GH.

Numbers are quantitative and qualitative. There is a story in the GH ratings if one cares to apply some analysis. The ratings spiked when Robin came back and stayed up. The very week after she left, with an exit story that many didn’t like, the show lost 400,000 thousand viewers and has been down since. In the past two months many have complained about the writing getting worse, the pacing getting worse, the killing of AJ, the infiltration of the Westbourne’s, etc. If people don’t want to connect the dots and keep looking for silver linings while ignoring the facts, they can feel free to do so, but I don’t know who that helps.

The Nurses ball debuted to almost 2.9 million viewers and lost almost 300,000 the second day. If people think that big a drop has nothing to do with a bunch of people not liking what they saw the first day, then again, feel free, but it seems pretty obvious. To try and compare those days to other soaps makes no sense. The Nurses ball should be a huge event and if people don’t tune in, or tune out, that tells you something.

Bottom line, GH numbers are not good, for whatever reason, the trend is down, and they can’t afford it. If the CBS soaps are down, so what? They aren’t in jeopardy and if the quality of those shows are declining as well, again so what? What does that have to do with GH?

GH50 has nothing better do but complain. If anyone has anything positive to say GH50 automatically comes with the same weekly complaints. TV shows numbers change at different times of the year. The numbers are still much higher than they were 1 year ago. And 2 years ago the numbers were not higher, as that was when GH was hitting horrible numbers. But hey keep watching and complaining about a show you dislike. If that is what keeps you happy keep it up just don’t get upset at people for being positive about the show. Why is it anytime someone is positive they are accused of being a cheerleader? Yet if you get called a hater you get mad

I state my opinion about the show because that’s what the comment section is for. Michael Fairman is a respected soap journalist and he opens his column to debate and ideas. There are plenty of places for readers to go if they only want to hear people talking about how great the show is no matter what. I’ve watched GH for 34 years and I am absolutely appalled that a show that has such a deep and rich history and has been such a big part of my life for so long has been reduced to one big mess.

Mr. Fairman provides a forum for me and others to post our feelings, comments and analysis and I take advantage of that. Once people start calling people out for their opinions and whether or not they are spending their time wisely stating them often tells me that they have no substantive argument to make.

If people want to be positive about the show, go ahead and be positive about the writing, producing, storytelling, acting, anything you want. But in terms of wasting time, maybe people shouldn’t spend their time spinning ratings numbers positively when they are not. The show has lost momentum. It has lost viewers in the past months and it is at a level of viewers that is not at all impressive.

The trajectory is not up, so being up from last year means nothing if it is stagnant and possibly on the way down. If GH was growing incrementally over the last year, and consistently on the rise, that would at least tell a different story. When you hit decent numbers over 3 million and then lose hundreds of thousands of people, there’s a problem.

Andrew, i really don’t want to be combative, but your points really have no merit on an empirical basis. The Nielsen system is what is used to set advertising rates. It doesn’t matter if it tells the whole story or if people DVR and watch all week at once. That is true of other soaps as well. The ratings are the ratings and the raw numbers that those rating represent are what is important. Advertising is sold on a cost per point/cost per thousand basis. It is that simple. The less viewers you have the less you can charge, the less revenue you take in, the less profitable the show is. It’s that simple.

And no one should be worried if GH is the only soap that goes down. It’s not about up and down, it’s about numbers. raw numbers. eyeballs. audience size. The larger the audience the more you can charge for advertising. That’s it. The CBS soaps can afford to lose viewers now because their raw numbers are so much higher. They are extremely more profitable than GH because of the sheer numbers.

The “key” demos don’t count if you don’t have the mass. You can’t charge enough for ad time for 200,000 women 18-34 or 650,000 18-49 and sustain the show. They are additive. They help and are could to have. They expand your advertisng base. Without the mass of older viewers, you can’t sell enough ad time at high enough rates to be profitable. I have been in advertisng for 25 years. I have managed hundreds of millions of dollars in ad budgets. I know the facts. I know how networks and TV stations price their inventory.

As for all the excuses of fires and weather, I can tell you that the ratings in the New York market, where there have been no fires or adverse weather, the ratings are significantly down. The first and second week of the Nurses Ball and this current week.

David, people like GH50 above are perfectly entitled to come on here and give honest opinions about GH as well as insight about ratings trends without being ridiculed.

So let me get this straight: Just because someone (god forbid) has the audacity to not shower GH with endless praise and gush about how wonderful it is, and actually give insight and pieces of ratings data that are not 100% positive, that person in your world is automatically “complaining” or “hating”? Please grow up already, man. If you can’t take dissenting responses like that, then I suggest that you stay away from threads like this.

For crying out loud, there’s nothing wrong with expressing constructive criticism about a TV show, especially one that’s been on as long as GH. In fact, believe it or not, it’s a healthy thing to do. I’m sure GH50 and many others have been watching for years out of habit and want the show to continue on well into the future. They don’t seem to like everything they see on the show, so they vent about what can and needs to be done better. So what? Do you really expect those fans to stay silent? Get real.