More Parallels Between the Radio and Soap Opera Industries (Oct 23, 2009)

Salary cuts have been the norm of radio for over a decade. Now with ratings in the 2's, daytime soap operas are feeling the financial crunch as the television networks negotitate to reduce their rigths fees for the soaps they don't own (ABC owns all three of their shows), or getting the producers to make some budgetary cuts to remain on the air.

Daytime Confidential: GH's Former Lucy 'Splains It All About The Treatment of Veteran Soap Actors. Excerpt: The networks don't get that our viewers are so intuitive and smart. Even GH people, who had never watched GL and are faithful to their show, understood what it meant to lose a show like that. Daytime is a lot classier than people think, and it hurt to be back on daytime and see what has happened in the genre. I love this genre!

What's going on with the soaps is parallel to what's been happening to the broadcast radio industry for more than a decade. Reduced salaries. Veteran performers being let loose. Fixation on the 18-49 age demographic. They fire the older people or make the atmosphere so Generally Hostile (pun intended) that the older workers would rather walk than to take a pay cut to the level of an inexperienced young male actor. Eric Braden is gone from Y&R because of the corporate owner's (Sony) decision to renegotitate his contract, which expires in 2010, to a lower salary before his contract has even expired, and that's not fair to the actor.

The real problem is simple: lower ratings translate to lower advertising bucks for the networks. To be real about it, CBS's replacement of Guiding Light with Let's Make a Deal, a game show, won't get the network more advertising bucks, but it costs far less money for the network to pay for the rights to air the show as game shows cost less money to produce.

Soaps in the late 70s used to get the ratings many prime time shows of today are getting today, around the 7's to 10's range by my estimate. More channels, Internet, and other choices for entertaiment have gotten a bigger piece of the televison ratings pie since then, leaving the three networks with about a 6 rating to split between NBC's Days of Our Lives, and whichever soaps CBS and ABC are airing opposite it depending on your local time zone. That's not a big piece of a pie anymore. It's also not good for the producers, actors, or networks. This is why money is tight. Reality, talk, and game shows are cheaper to produce and can make the network money, but put the actors out of work. Perhaps more actors should take up becoming talk show hosts on the radio, or become voicetracked deejays for Clear Channel radio for employment. Two may survive when 2020 arrives. Which two is anyone's guess.

Can't Go Back to General Hospital Again (Oct 23, 2009)