What Came First?

-By Liz

These days I watch soaps just to see my favorite actors, Stephen Nichols and Mary Beth Evans:

When I watch, and this has been true (for me) since the mid 90’s, I have to wonder if I saw the potential for something really great, would I give it a chance these days? Would I wholeheartedly jump in and treasure the story? Would the writers? I see how jaded I have become with the way storylines are told…the cliches, the stunts. If something interesting does start, it’s not likely to last more than some months; the momentum is lost quickly. I know I am not alone in feeling this way. So I have to wonder, if Steve and Kayla (just as we saw them) debuted in 2010 instead of 1986, would they have a chance to achieve the same popularity/greatness?

Steve and Kayla were based in character-driven drama. Their storylines seemed to flow from one to the next because the core of the characters and their internal conflicts was always “the heart” of their story together. Steve and Kayla didn’t exist in a vacuum; their relationships with family were so much of a part of who they were as individuals. The pacing of the storyline in 2010 would have been completely different, too. With today’s pacing, Steve and Kayla would have kissed each other and slept together within a week of meeting. The buildup and the longing would have been nonexistent. Today’s lazy writers could never have written complexities and subtleties of the Steve and Kayla we knew. They did not need stunt triangles, nor endless baby drama, nor constant manipulations to be interesting. Everything that daytime is today would have destroyed everything (outside of the acting) that made Steve and Kayla so special.

Why has daytime changed SO much in the past decade and a half?

I remember reading an article in the 90’s by a bigwig in the daytime industry (I’ve honestly forgotten who it was), who said that the reason soap storylines had changed so much by the mid to late 90’s was that “the daytime audience, like all audiences, became more fickle as they had more choices in programming”, which in turn meant having to try many different, shocking plots to get attention for their shows. At first, I honestly found the quote insulting. Oh c’mon. PUHlease. The reason soaps were failing and audiences were dwindling down was merely because there were more choices? A judgment was being made that “the audience” had changed and were less loyal. I found that far too simplistic. Why not blame the lame, sensationalistic sci-fi plots that had replaced the romance and character-driven drama that appealed to multiple generations (so many viewers had grown up watching with their mothers, grandmothers and babysitters)?

So what came first, the chicken or the egg? Did audiences tune out because soap opera programming no longer appealed to them as a whole? Was it the quality of the storytelling that turned them off? Or was it like this ‘bigwig’ said; that daytime lost so many viewers because there were more choices available, and the only way to get those viewers back was by pulling “stunts”/gimmicks for attention and reaction?

It is true that over the last two decades in particular we have become a nation, perhaps a world, expecting instant gratification, constant movement, instant dinners. Watching a story that drags out over a long period of time (as in a serial format), might not be in “sync” or in tune with the pace of today’s world. It is also true that the generations before didn’t have as many “other” choices to watch when soap operas got maddening and ridiculous. That said however, we still see in primetime that innovative, fresh, quirky, edgy shows that offer consistent quality programming, still attract viewers (of many ages). Why wouldn’t that be true in daytime programming? We have DVR’s now. We’ve had VCR’s for over two decades. Even back when there wasn’t much choice on “what else” to watch, there was still the choice of not watching at all- and still, soaps thrived for decades.

For me, there was a far more prominent reason for the drastic change in daytime soap viewership in the 90’s, and OJ was not it. The biggest change in the 1990’s (when soaps saw their biggest drops in viewership) to impact television as a whole, was a change in the business of show business. In the 90’s, targeting a specific (increasingly younger) demographic seemingly became the only way to attract advertising dollars- thus alienating a huge portion of daytime viewership in the process. (Even more disturbing: they think mobsters, rapists and other misogynists are great sex symbols for that younger audience they’ve been courting…but that’s another topic for another day).

When is alienating the majority of your audience a good idea? Never. No matter how colorful their packaging, nor how big the hype, there will never be an industry that thrives when most of its consumers are driven away by bad product.

So …what do you think? If Steve and Kayla debuted today, would they even have a chance to be half as great? What has changed daytime so much since the 90s, in your opinion?

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