Thursday, March 28, 2024

Soap Ratings Plummet for “Young and Restless” as Stars Exit, “General Hospital” Losing Key Demo in Droves

Share

The soap operas are really having ratings issues now.

“The Young and the Restless” started November sweeps with a huge week to week drop– 170,000 viewers exited with star Eileen Davidson. By Friday November 2nd, “Y&R” was under 4 million viewers. On the same day Davidson left, Christel Khalil– who’s almost 30 years younger than Davidson and should be a key player in attracting key demo viewers– also said goodbye. These departures are being painted as voluntary. But that’s highly unlikely. Executive Producer Mal Young is having trouble keeping a 45 year old ship afloat.

Meanwhile, “General Hospital” has dropped to fourth place– out of four soaps– in the key demos for all ages. During the first week of sweeps they lost 537,000 viewers from the same week last year. Whaattttt???? Where did everyone go? The demo loss and the total audience drop should be enough to convince the people in charge to make serious changes. That many viewers is a whole cable show, like “Camping” on HBO.

The other two soaps, “Days of Our Lives,” and “The Bold and the Beautiful,” are also not booming. But their losses don’t seem so bad by comparison. And “B&B” actually was first in the 18-34 key demo that week, beating “Y&R.”

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.
spot_img

Read more

In Other News