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

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.”