Thursday, April 30, 2009

Report Card: TV’s Winners & Losers

Brian Gianelli at Fancast has published a list of TV's winners and losers for this season.

I certainly can agree with FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS being listed as a winner having had a superb season and being renewed for two more.

WINNER - FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS: The experiment between NBC and DirecTV worked. The two split the cost of new episodes, which aired in the fall on DirecTV and re-aired in the winter/spring on NBC. FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS won an amazing two-year renewal. NY magazine called the news “mind-exploding.” The next two seasons will each have 13 episodes, so we can keep watching Dillon’s best parents, Eric and Tami Taylor, and find out what happens to our favorite Panthers after graduation. Unfortunately the show is losing two hotties, Adrianne Palicki and Minka Kelly. But we’re sure they’ll rebuild.

But enough with dumping on soaps and/or soap fans today!

LOSER - SOAP FANS: After 72 years (57 of those on television) GUIDING LIGHT will go dark in September, ending the longest-running TV drama in history. Fans have only a few precious months to spend with their favorite Springfield residents. One rumor circulating has Lifetime interested in continuing the show. But one thing’s for sure: Daytime soaps are in trouble. Beset by declining ratings and changing viewing habits, the genre’s future could suffice as its own danger-plagued plot. A mere seven soaps remain on the three major networks. Demographics have changed. “You don’t have stay-at-home moms like you used to,” UCLA television professor Myri Schreibman noted three years ago. Until the CW stepped up, no network wanted to broadcast the Daytime Emmys. One college newspaper captured the situation when it headlined a story ‘The Young and the Ambivalent.”

FNL is a soap too but critics refuse to accept that fact. To me a continuing drama is a "soap" whether it airs in the daytime or at night. I have a special place in my heart for the daytime variety but I treat them all the same on the blog. Continuing stories will never go out of style.

1 comment:

  1. Well, I agree on your broad definition of "soap". But, if we're honest, the (1) daytime variety, (2) 5 days a week, on (3) broadcast networks IS endangered.

    Changing any one or all three of those variables could help our current soaps survive.

    But I think the interesting story -- since we're both sure the serial will flourish -- is where an how they will pop up once the current legacy soaps are allowed to sunset. Will there ever be a "stripped" daily serial again? If so, when and where?

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