TV Guidance

TV Guidance

Jaime Weinman writes about all kinds of television and other kinds of popular culture. He does not write Gossip Girl episode reviews. Follow Jaime on Twitter: @weinmanj

The Next Soap Opera To Die Is…

by Jaime Weinman on Tuesday, December 8, 2009 7:15pm - 7 Comments

As the World Turns.

It’s actually kind of a horror-movie plot about soap operas: the shows are being taken out one by one by mysterious outside forces. Which show will be the next to go?

And of course, by “mysterious outside forces” I mean “the demise of the business model that created soap operas in the first place.” Plus the usual problems: changing demographics, the fact that soap operas can no longer make back the cost of maintaining a large cast, and the rise of cable, which has displaced the daytime soap as the place to go for racy/controversial storylines they won’t do in prime time.

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  • Chris B

    How are Corrie and EastEnders doing in Britain?

    • James Moar

      Lower than they used to be, but what with the rise of multichannel TV so are most things. They still get relatively high ratings.

  • Alan

    Not at all related to the above post, but what's the deal with "fall finales" this year? I don't really recall this ever being an event before this year. Do you think it's because of the general 13 upfront episodes which may or may not be followed by the back 9? Perhaps it's more because they're worried that when they take a break, they'll lose some viewers, so they're writing to have more of a cliffhanger/finale right before the break.

  • cleargreen

    a dream come true, I like to think my positive enegy to get that garbage off the air helped… now for those damn commercials that yell at me to buy something 36 to 48 times per hour…

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