Monday, August 31, 2009

ROMANOVICH: Post-Mortem on the Daytime Emmys

Associated Television International's (ATI) president of Worldwide Media and Entertainment Jim Romanovich, one of the executive producers of this year's Daytime Emmy telecast, shared his thoughts on the show and the ratings with We Love Soaps.

People should know that Broadcasting & Cable, a reputable trade magazine, counted the one hour red carpet show, which was NOT in prime time, as part of the awards ceremony. We actually did over a 2 HH rating and closer to 2.8 or more million viewers. Here’s what Nielsen said as far as the CW was concerned:

Vs. CW's prior 4-week time period average (movies), the Daytime Emmy Awards telecast up +81% in total viewers, +122% in HH, +50% in W18-49, +57% in W25-54, +20% in W18-34, +20% in A18-49, +17% in A25-54 and +25% in A18-34.

I also want the viewers to understand that I was very clear from the beginning about ratings. If I counted on ratings to save this show, I would have been on a fool’s mission. It was never about beating what ABC did. I said in interviews that the CW on its BEST night cannot beat ABC on its WORST night. That’s just the way it is. But if you compare apples to apples, you’d see a much different picture. So we knew going into this, and we publicly stated as such, that we would not do as well as ABC did last year because of the overall difference between ABC and the CW. But what matters most is that the comments were overwhelmingly positive by advertisers, producers, actors, fans, and the Academy. The majority of fans loved the show from my emails and from what I read. The general negative comments were that someone won over their choice-which is beyond my control. The CW had a hard out at 10pm, as well as restrictions on other portions of the show, which is why certain segments seemed abrupt. Vanessa Williams was a huge hit!

But you got your show. It was classy and entertaining (watch the audience as they were definitely having a good time), and flew by. My only critique is that if the CW affiliates were smart, they would have allowed us to go over by five minutes because those items that were short would have been seen.

I want to thank the fans most of all. Honestly. I believe in being heard. You fans may have loved certain moments in the show or hated certain moments in the show. You praise me one moment and threaten to kill me the next. That’s what I love about you. It’s never dull! You believe in your shows and you’ll fight to the death for them. How could anybody not admire that? I do. Whatever you feel about this show is valid because they’re your feelings and they’re personal to you. I, and all of ATI, care about them and tried to do what was best for all of daytime and especially the soaps. We said we were going to give you a fast paced entertainment driven show and we did. No regrets on our part. As a matter of fact, it was a great success! As I said, the response given to me personally from the daytime community at the theatre was overwhelming. We can’t control what the CW does or allows.

Congratulations to all the nominees and winners.

2010? The ball’s in our court. Nobody else’s.

Thanks for all your hard work this year, Jim!

3 comments:

  1. I Hope Jim Does Produce It next Year. He Should Team With Whoever Did The SOD Awards

    Jim Should Also Produce A New Daytime Soap. He Seems To Love The Genre So Much

    ReplyDelete
  2. I thought next year was ABC's turn? Or does the CW have the option to pick the show up first?

    ReplyDelete
  3. So does this mean that there will be an Emmys broadcast next year or not? Confused.

    ReplyDelete