FLASHBACK: The Old And The Desperate 1995

SOAP OPERAS: THE OLD AND THE DESPERATE

By Sophfronia Scott Gregory and Ginia Bellafante
TIME Magazine
May, 29, 1995

Thrice kidnapped and once kept drugged on a remote island for five years, Dr. Marlena Evans has suffered her share of improbable bad luck over her long soap- opera career. These days, though, her troubles have become increasingly unmanageable. Since last winter the virtuous psychiatrist, portrayed by Deidre Hall, on NBC's DAYS OF OUR LIVES, has been possessed not by run-of-the-mill lust but rather by the devil himself. With eyes that turn a yield-sign yellow and a voice that sinks deep and demonic, Dr. Evans has misbehaved all over the fictional town of Salem. So far, she has burned down a church, unleashed a swarm of vicious bees and morphed -- with the help of movie-like special effects -- into a menacing black panther. Stay tuned for a scheduled exorcism.

Well, you won't find that on MONTEL WILLIAMS or the RICKI LAKE SHOW. Over the top even by the standards of daytime TV, DAYS OF OUR LIVES' satanic plot line is just one example of the frenzied effort soap operas are making to maintain viewers and desperately lure new ones in the face of dwindling ratings. Currently 10 daytime soap operas are on network TV, just more than half the number that were airing in 1970. One reason for the falloff is the profusion of OPRAH-style talk shows, which are able to serve up story lines about real-life family traumas, drug-abuse problems and evil boyfriends on a daily basis. During the past months, moreover, the soaps have been hit by their toughest competition yet: that interminable suspense tale, featuring a handsome former football player charged with murdering his wife.

"Thanks to the O.J. travesty (Will we ever be rid of this national embarrassment?), all the soaps have suffered a ratings decline," bemoaned Mimi Torchin, editor in chief of Soap Opera Weekly, in a recent editorial. Last summer, in early July, the serials lost an entire week of programming when they were pre-empted for the Simpson trial's preliminary hearings, and they have never really recovered. "It's been a battle all along," says Susan Banks, director of on-air promotion for cbs Daytime. "We thought the viewers would come back, but they didn't." Since the beginning of this year, when cnn and court tv began broadcasting the Simpson trial daily, the three top-rated soap operas -- CBS's THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS and ABC's ALL MY CHILDREN and GENERAL HOSPITAL -- have each lost more than 10% of their viewership.

Soap operas continue to have large and devoted followings, as was fully in evidence at last Friday's televised Daytime Emmy Awards from New York City, where GENERAL HOSPITAL won its third statuette for best drama and Susan Lucci, the soap world's perennial also-ran, failed to win a Best Actress award for the 15th time. The soaps remain extremely profitable for the networks too, generating hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. But lower ratings mean fewer potential advertising dollars and a general sense of corporate unease. Procter & Gamble, which owns three network soap operas -- CBS's AS THE WORLD TURNS and GUIDING LIGHT and NBC's ANOTHER WORLD -- recently replaced the executive producers of all three shows, which are among the four lowest-rated daytime soaps. Some soaps are working hard to boost ratings with stranger than usual story lines. On ABC's 26-year-old serial ONE LIFE TO LIVE, Viki Lord Buchanan's multiple-personality disorder is wreaking havoc again after years of dormancy. During the mid-'80s the matronly blond heroine (played by Erika Slezak) harbored only one alter ego: racy barfly Niki Smith. But now Viki is plagued by four additional inner selves, including kidnapper Jean Randolph, corporate saboteur and future arsonist Tori, a thug named Tommy and a vulnerable little girl viewers know as Princess.

Over at GENERAL HOSPITAL, once TV's top-rated soap and currently a slightly faded No. 3, writers seem to be aiming for morbid, publicity-conscious social relevance. Last week ABC held a press conference to announce the launch of a new G.H. plot line revolving around dyslexic heartthrob Stone Cates (Michael Sutton). Stone, a former street kid who dates likable Port Charles teen Robin Scorpio (Kimberly McCullough), has just discovered that he is HIV positive. His illness will progress in what network press material describes as "real time" and will "not be rushed for the sake of accommodation." In other words, he'll stay sick as long as it helps the ratings.

Hoping to woo back former fans and keep the ones they have, the soaps are also aggressively promoting themselves with such memorabilia as trading cards, coffee mugs, T shirts and books, as well as prime-time specials. Some are cleverly marketing videos that feature best-loved scenes and character histories. Available in video stores and supermarkets and through mail order, the tapes recycle old footage and thus cost little to produce. "It's a great example of using what you have and making money twice on it," says Michael Kape, managing editor of the weekly newsletter Soap Opera Now. "The tapes keep the shows in front of the public when they're not on the air."

In conjunction with Reva Shayne Lewis' (Kim Zimmer) recent resurrection from the dead on GUIDING LIGHT, the soap is selling "Reva: The Scarlet Years." ABC is pushing "Daytime's Greatest Weddings," a three-part collection featuring memorable nuptials from three of the network's soaps: ALL MY CHILDREN, ONE LIFE TO LIVE and GENERAL HOSPITAL. "We knew people wanted to see Luke and Laura's wedding again," says abc Daytime president Pat Fili-Krushel of the 1981 G.H. episode that garnered through-the-roof ratings. "People remember where they were and what they were doing when these events happened." Finally, there is All About Erica, which chronicles the life of Susan Lucci's celebrated A.M.C. vixen, erstwhile supermodel, executive and mom Erica Kane.

Popular for its satirical tone, ALL MY CHILDREN tried to capitalize on viewer nostalgia last January, when it celebrated its 25th anniversary. The show spent a week reviewing in flashback its quarter-century on the air. It also produced a book, "ALL MY CHILDREN: The Complete Family Scrapbook," now in its fourth printing, and a nighttime retrospective to which its most famous fan, Carol Burnett, played host.

ABC will air another prime-time soap special on June 21, which will plug summer story lines for all its daytime dramas. The summer season is an important one for soaps because it offers the prospect of an expanded audience of teenagers home from school. CBS Daytime is launching a high-visibility summer campaign that includes radio, print and prime-time advertising in cities where viewer decline has been particularly precipitous, such as Atlanta, Detroit, Seattle and Washington.

The soaps have also discovered the promotional opportunities available in cyberspace. All three networks have launched online daytime-series chat rooms. ABC's seems to be the busiest and best managed. The network has placed computers in the New York City studios where its soaps are taped, and it encourages actors to go online during their breaks. In March ONE LIFE TO LIVE fans crowded a chat room to talk to Dorian Lord -- in the real world known as Robin Strasser -- while she was getting her hair done. A prescheduled visit by ALL MY CHILDREN's Lucci racked up one of the largest audiences that America Online has ever had.

Whether outre plots or gimmicky marketing will succeed in reviving the soaps remains to be seen. Traditionalists think that the tactics are unlikely to help. "We are not just competing with other forms of media and murder trials but with faster-paced, more sophisticated life-styles," notes veteran soap-opera writer Tom Citrano, formerly of GENERAL HOSPITAL and currently with Loving. "It's not about coming up with spectacular plots, or comic-book stories, or public-service announcements but with stories that mirror contemporary life."

That is also the philosophy espoused by Bill and Lee Phillip Bell, creators of television's top-rated soap, THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS, and The Bold and the Beautiful, the only successful new daytime drama to be introduced in the past decade. "We have characters who are role models and families that work to stay together," proclaims Bradley Bell, their son and the head writer for THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFLU. "Our strength is investing in character-staying with interpersonal relationships." Interpersonal relationships, so far at least, that don't involve Lucifer.