All My Children

Seven Culprits Who Killed the Soaps! Who or what else should join this list?

May 4, 2011

Photo Credit: JPI Studios

Photo Credit: JPI Studios

TV Guide took a look today at who they deem responsible for killing the network daytime dramas! They have come up with a list of culprits responsible for the fall of the genre. The top seven contain: James Franco, The Real Housewives reality franchise, Farmville, plus several other wrong-doers! See if you agree with their assessment, and then let us know who or what else should be added to the list of the culprits for the demise of your beloved soaps.

TV Guide Top Seven List of Culprits:

1. Reality Television

2. Ratings Grabbers vs. Lame Stunts

3. Bratty Kids

4. Day Jobs

5. The Siren Song of Social Media

6. Talk Shows

7. Time-shifted viewing

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Jason

how about people who claim want to help daytime, but are really ruining it?

Rae

I’ve thought for a few years that one network was intentionally writing their soaps to drive down the numbers of viewers. A major leading character spends years in an upright comatose state. She would sit motionless while her ‘daughter’ would comb her long hair. The character was portrayed as a weak helpless woman for years. The characters daughter grew up off camera supposedly raised by her grandmother. The soap couple had been loving and great parents a decade earlier…dream parents. The network ended it with just a toss away story. No real storyline. Just a few basic lines to write her off the show while trying to make the character appear unstable and certainly not the mother that we all watched for well over a decade. The actress would have returned for major family events but the network would not allow that. The viewers were supposed to somehow believe this incredible mother would not attend her own grandsons memorial (oops…that was off camera too) or stand with her daughter when she was deciding about having an abortion. What this network did to destroy their soaps would fill Tom Clancy length novels. What they did to keep them on the air is minimul. Thank God for the actors that made something good out of nothing. It was intentional suicide by that network and a few columnists over the years have openly suggested that it had to be intentional.

Jan

I think it hasnt helped OUR soaps writing things PEOPLE just couldnt buy.
Twins, characters coming back from the dead and or just storylines shoved down our throats. Bring in characters that DONT belong.
Characters leaving, that meant the end of True Love , for example; Brandon Buddy
leaving his role of Cole. Pairing Starr with another leaving Sole to just die.
Actors come and go but THAT was crushing.
I stopped watching even before Buddy left.
The Natalie & John story ruined by a stupid one night stand with Brody.

Heather CT

think you are on the right track with this comment Jan…. prime time soaps don’t write this way anymore…… we are not stuck in the 80’s are we ……and I think TPTB have forgotten that today’s viewer is NOT the same kind of viewer that our mother’s were….our attention span is much shorter I think…..even as we may want to escape for an hour in our favorite show…dreaming of love in the afternoon….we are an intelligent viewer…not mindless…and I think some of this is not throughly planned….thought through…storylines arcing to make sense…or too many dropped storylines….why is that …is that the writers fault or production cut backs making that happen?? not sure ……..BUT in a nutshell I agree we are not buying the characters and stories that don’t belong……and with other things so easily accessible for the viewer to turn too to instead…..remember also we are the generation that fast forwards through the commercials sorry to say

sus

Soaps in the era of reality TV… it’s all about shock and sensationalism. The stories on daytime television were once apparently really thought out and fine tuned, where a few months in advance you would see foreshadowing of what was to come (i.e. The Left Handed Boy). Now there is no intricate, fine tuned, build up of story. Pretty much they are writing 2 hour movies of the week (if that), where the whole cast of characters change to support the plot de jour. There is no character consistency. Their whole personality, moral code, cognitive functioning can change on a dime so the writers can prop the lame plots and stunts for what they believe is maximum effect… they have put their wants and desires with regard to what they think would be interesting in front of what is really important to the daytime audience.. the characters! These are family members to us, best friends…. TPTB (for GH anyway) treat the whole audience like we have ADD or ADHD, or they have it themselves.. and nobody seems to get that the pay off is much better when you take it slow, and build, to the point where the audience is at the edge of their seat in anticipation. (L&L 1979-1981). There is no more anticipation… and truthfully that’s what the genre has.. the only thing it has to it’s advantage that no other genre did…is time… time for the build, time for the REAL maximum payoff. They can’t compete with the plots, stunts and special effects of movies and streaming Net Flix, they can’t compete with adult entertainment (though they seem to try .. and it is pathetic to watch the lame sex scenes that they can’t really do anything with for those of us who are over 12, and they miss the point that for this audience it should be about getting there.. the emotional build ). The people in charge have tried to take soaps and make them something they were never intended to be. They have thrown out their core viewers, their dedicated, loyal fans thinking somehow they were going to win new viewers (more important ones) with stunts (a friday cliffhanger was about human beings in an emotional situation, and one would say something and we would wait all weekend just to see the response, the effect, the human reaction… gun shots, explosions ring hollow .. yes even to the younger demographic!) The truth is good storytelling will never go out of fashion. I cannot tell you how many teenagers got hooked on L&L in 2006. Why? Because it was a good story, one with roots, one with emotion, one that they could relate too. They need to stop understimating the younger viewers and just tell good, intelligent stories about characters the audience cares about. It needs to be about emotion, not plot. Serialization has been around for a long time, and it will be around for a long time.. but the networks have ruined daytime… Read more »

laura

daytime executives who neither like nor understand the genre…..and dont listen to the viewers who do

Webbie

The OJ Simpson Trial (which could be combined with the “reality TV” group). There is probably a direct correlation between the trial and the dwindling number of viewers. Watching that trial for weeks and weeks gave people a taste of “reality” TV and that was it. I don’t think the numbers ever recovered.

Annie

I agree 100% with SUS, it’s the writing that killed the soaps. Watch the old Ryan’s Hope on SoapNet if you want to see what was so great about the soaps in the old days. The “story arc” is a thing of the past – slow build-up to a satisfying pay-off. Doug Marland was a master of it (ATWT). Nowadays, there simply is no pay-off. If the villian in a story is “popular”, doesn’t matter how atrocious or vicious their crimes are (I’m specifically thinking of Adam on Y&R, but there are many others), the original story goes out the window, they rewrite it so that they can somehow keep the character around, and the integrity of the story is completely lost so that no one cares any more. And don’t even get me started on the fact that no one ever stays dead now. It used to be that a character being killed off was a real reason to grieve and get invested in it. Now, it’s almost a certainty that they’ll somehow rise from the dead, so you know it’s just a waiting game. The emotional tie has been completely removed.

I so wish that there would be a true Soap channel out there that would show the old soaps from the glory days. Such good stuff back in the day, it’s really sad what they’ve become.

Rob

Clunky plots and stunts instead of character driven storylines. The reason The Bold and the Beautiful is seeing a ratings decline is this very reason. I find the Brooke/Thomas storyline completely unbelievable and ludicrous. One Life to Live is an excellent example of character driven storylines, utilizing the old timers and newcomers equally. Unfortunately just as I got attached to it, they cancel it. How many soaps, hell any television series, can claim the surge in ratings and quality that this show has shown recently? Not a one.

Linda

1. How ratings are compiled (don’t understand why it doesn’t count if you watch more than 3 days later)

2. Having daytime executives who lack the ability, or desire, to think outside the box

3. The writing. The writing. The writing. Watching any vintage episode shows that in spades.

Stephanie

I think what really killed the soaps was the poorly written shows. If the shows had been written better fans would still watch but since they’re not people who were once faithful watcher’s have moved on to other things. There are way too many other things for people to do with their time, You’ve got tons of cable stations along with On Demand that allow you to watch what you want on your schedule and then there’s the internet that allows us to interact socially with others on FB, Twitter etc . and play online games through game systems.

I was once a huge fan of soaps in fact I watched them for 30 years but the writing just got crazier and crazier not to mention the writers would use the same storyline every couple of months for different characters so I got sick of the show I watched and started watching shows or movies on cable.

Maureen

I’m sorry but I get annoyed when I see people blame reality tv. I don’t know many people who actually watch reality tv in the day. It would be easier to just say cable television because it encompasses everything. I am more likely to watch reruns than reality tv. But I am also more likely to surf the web than watch tv like most people my age (20s).

All My Children

Kelly Ripa Reveals How Her Son Chose NYU Due To The Consuelos Connection To Former Soap EP/ Director, Chris Goutman

October 27, 2019

Last week on an episode of Live with Kelly and Ryan, the former star of All My Children, Kelly Ripa (Ex-Hayley) told Ryan Seacrest how a chance meeting when her son, Michael was deciding where to go to college; between her, Michael, and Chris Goutman (Ex-Executive Producer As the World Turns and former director, All My Children) changed the course of Michael’s creative and academic path.

Turns out that Goutman is now working over at NYU’s Tisch School for the Arts as an assistant professor and academic director.

During their banter on the talk show, Kelly revealed that Goutman directed the screen-test that landed Mark Consuelos the role of Mateo on All My Children, and thus how Ripa met her real-live enduring lovematch.

Ripa explained that Michael was waiting for a sign as to which college to go to as he liked most of the places he saw. Then came the sign as Ripa explained to Seacrest: “We’re walking down the hallway and I hear a voice I know say, ‘Consuelos!’ “He turns around and I see Chris Goutman, who was our director at All My Children … I worked with him for 11 years.”

Ripa says Chris then expressed to Michael: “You have to come here, because I am the reason you literally exist.”

Photo: JPI

Ripa is reportedly also working on a film for the class, as well. Watch what Kelly shared below.

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Then let us know your thoughts on the story Kelly told via the comment section below.

All My Children

Y&R, AMC and GL Alum, Jeff Branson Featured In New AppleTV+ Drama, ‘For All Mankind’

October 24, 2019

Daytime Emmy winner, Jeff Branson is featured in a new drama coming your way on the new AppleTV+ platform. Branson takes on the role of famous astronaut Neil Armstrong in For All Mankind.

At the epicenter of the story is NASA and the Soviet space program as they square off in the space race of the 1970s. But this has a twist, America has lost the race and tensions boil over between the two nations.

The main focus in the series is the lives of the astronauts and the personal and professional relationships they encounter. For All Mankind presents an aspirational world where NASA and the space program remained a priority and a focal point of our hopes and dreams.

Branson is fondly remembered in soapland for his performances as Ronan Malloy on The Young and the Restless, Jonathan Randall on All My Children, and Shayne Lewis on Guiding Light.

For All Mankind is created by Emmy Award winner Ronald D. Moore (Outlander, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica), Matt Wolpert and Ben Nedivi.

In addition to Branson the cast includes: Joel Kinnaman, Michael Dorman, Wrenn Schmidt, Shantel VanSanten, Sarah Jones and Jodi Balfour. General Hospital’s Jason David (Aiden Spencer) also appears in the series.

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The first season streams on on AppleTV+ beginning on November 1st, with the second season of the series “all systems go”.

Watch the teaser for the series and interviews with some of the cast including: what Branson had to share about playing Neil Armstrong below.

Then let us know, would you love to see Jeff back on the soaps? Will you be checking out the new streaming service featuring For All Mankind and check out Jeff’s performances? Comment below.

All My Children

TODAY: ‘Tainted Dreams’ Begins To Stream Episodes On PopStar! TV Platform

September 23, 2019

Beginning today on Monday, September 23rd, the series Tainted Dreams, which shows you the behind-the-scenes antics of a fictional hit TV soap opera, will stream its first two seasons for free on the on the Popstar! TV platforms.

To view: you can download the Popstar! TV’s mobile app or visit www.popstaronline.com to watch Tainted Dreams or for more info visit https://www.tainteddreams.com/#home-section.

For those who need a refresher: Tainted Dreams follows the cast and crew behind the scenes of a hit TV soap opera called “Painted Dreams”, and of course, it’s filled with lots of twists and turns

In addition, there is a bonus episode on Popstar! TV that gives some background on how all the characters came to be a part of “Painted Dreams”.

Courtesy: NYCBrandEnt

Sonia Blangiardo, the executive producer and creator of Tainted Dreams shared in a statement: “We are thrilled that there is more life for the show and that the new exposure will attract new viewers for the series. We’re excited to be in great company with the other shows the platform will be streaming and couldn’t be happier to be working with Craig and Jim Romanovich who has always been a loyal soap supporter.”

Tainted Dreams features a cast that includes: All My Children veterans Alicia Minshew, Walt Willey, Michael Lowry, Bobbie Eakes, Terri Ivens and the late Larkin Malloy, General Hospital’s Natalia Livingston, As the World Turns‘ Colleen Zenk, Austin Peck, Marnie Schulenburg and Kelley Menighan, Guiding Light’s Grant Aleksander, One Life to Live’s Ilene Kristen, Tonja Walker, Nathan Purdee and James DePaiva, Big Brother’s Jessie Godderz, The Real Housewives of New Jersey’s Dina Manzo, and more.