1 YEAR LATER: DRAWN-OUT SIMPSON PROCEEDINGS HAVE PUT U.S. JUSTICE SYSTEM ON TRIAL
By David Margolick
The New York Times
June 18, 1995
The appetite of television viewers for trial coverage has proved substantial.
When such soap-opera staples as Procter & Gamble and Clorox shift some of their advertising dollars to Court TV, a cultural sea change is clearly under way. Millions who once watched AS THE WORLD TURNS or GUIDING LIGHT now tune in to the Simpson trial instead.
Lynn Leahey, editor of Soap Opera Digest in New York, said those viewers may never come back.
"When you have a choice between a traditional soap opera and a really juicy real-life soap opera, people are going to tune into that," she said. For those who create soap operas from whole cloth, she said, the Simpson case "has been a major wake-up call."
Sigh. The bogeyman of daytime again?
ReplyDeleteYes, there was a short term ratings blip in the early 90s related to OJ.
But if you zoom your lens out a bit, you'll see that the trajectory of soap ratings (decline) was linear throughout the decade. Remember, some viewers who left came back after OJ. If you crunch the numbers, they were about the number of viewers we would have expected to come back. In other words, soap opera ratings were already in deep decline (some of your recent historical articles show this was happening already in the early 80s), and OJ did
NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING
to alter the long-term trajectory.
Did I mention OJ did NOTHING???
I'm almost sorry you posted this :).
It re-awakens a myth.
Soap ratings were ... and are ... where they are because of many things...women in the workforce...VCRs and time shifting ... a generation progression away from "grandma's stories" ... creative decline by misguided youth-quake attempts to lure new viewers... and so on.
OJ. He had NOTHING to do with it. I promise.
I think OJ impacted the ratings for some. A segment of the soap population watches out of habit. Even when the shows are bad, they continue watching. But if you break the habit, you can suddenly realize you don't miss it. That probably happened for some. This happened during the Oliver North trial, through many Olympics, Watergate, etc, etc. I don't see OJ as the person who killed soaps but he did take them off for a bit which is never good.
ReplyDeleteMostly I see OJ as a pre-cursor for what is happening in recent years. The media is following celebs like Britney Spears or Brad and Angela so closely that I think some get their soap fix from the real-life "soap operas" that the media creates out of these people's lives.
Of course the shares of soaps have gone down, down, down for decades just like the top-rated programs in prime time. There are just too many other options on TV and online for a show to get a 30 or 40 share.
I do agree with your premise that there are many factors or many years. I mostly wanted to show that even as it was happening, there was already speculation out there about OJ and his potential ratings impact.
I bumped up this old post from 2009 after seeing O.J. discussed in the Soap Life documentary last week.
ReplyDelete