Thursday, March 28, 2024

Soap Ratings Disaster: “Young and Restless” in Free Fall, Total Weekly Viewers Now Below 4 Million

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If CBS and Sony aren’t trying to destroy their number 1 rated soap opera, they’re behaving pretty strangely at this point.

“Tne Young and the Restless” scored only 3.95 million viewers for the week of September 17-21. The show was down a whopping 463,000 fans since the same week last year.

Four of the five days that week were under 4 million. The number of people watching declined every day from Monday through Friday, when the total was a measly 3,846,000.

Firings of veteran actors, public discord among the actors on social media, fan disapproval of storylines, is killing the show. I’ve said before, the only explanation that works is CBS wanting to get out of the soap business for good.

But what will they replace it with? More “CBS Morning News”? Unlikely. And with Julie Chen out of “The Talk,” the network has a new problem at 2pm. More syndicated talk? No one wants it, frankly. ABC is going to try and launch Tamron Hall soon. But the buzz simply isn’t there.

Simultaneously, something has also gone wrong at the CBS companion show, “The Bold and the Beautiful.” They lost 399K viewers year to year from September 17-21. Their total was down to 3.1 million. Both CBS soaps have lost 1 million viewers in one year.

With declines like these, the network will have the ammunition to cancel their remaining soaps — and soon. It’s the same game they played in 2010 with “As the World Turns” and “Guiding Light.” It’s as nefarious as a soap villain’s evil plot.

Roger Friedman
Roger Friedmanhttps://www.showbiz411.com
Roger Friedman began his Showbiz411 column in April 2009 after 10 years with Fox News, where he created the Fox411 column. His movie reviews are carried by Rotten Tomatoes, and he is a member of both the movie and TV branches of the Critics Choice Awards. His articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn't so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. He is also the writer and co-producer of "Only the Strong Survive," a selection of the Cannes, Sundance, and Telluride Film festivals, directed by DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus.
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