December 8: R.I.P. "As the World Turns"

Well the idiots at TeleNext, the subsidiary of Procter & Gamble, have done it. Along with the cowardly executives at CBS (and I even went to college with one of them, the vice president who predicted this over the summer and to whom I say "SHAME!"). They have cancelled the now longest-running daytime drama "As the World Turns" today. Happy F'ing Christmas!

Can you tell I'm a little upset (and I haven't even watched the show that much recently), but it remained one of my favorites. My grandmother watched this show along with "Guiding Light" and many others that had already gone off the air. I have flitted around and catch what I can -- hell, I ordered Soapnet when it still was pursuing its original mission of airing soap operas.

Okay, I get that the shows are somewhat expensive, but if one examines the history of the genre and sees how much money they have generated in the past -- how the news divisions benefited; how primetime shows benefited from the cash flow, my question is, couldn't you put a little back into the genre? Stand by them while they are undergoing a bit of an upheaval. Cancelling "Guiding Light" after 57 years and now "As the World Turns" after 54 says something. Since one of the executives who was responsible for this is at 52 years old, maybe we should cancel her contract because she's old and out of touch?

There are so many problems with the genre that I can see the whole thing disappearing in a couple of years. Yes, several enterprising actors are turning to the Internet and creating their own shows and perhaps that will be the wave of the future, but I maintain there is still a place for these "stories" if they are well told. Part of the problem is that the genre devours itself and rewards those who are lousy by passing them around. Imagine if a sport allowed that. A baseball pitcher who can't throw any more gets traded from the Yankees to the Red Sox to the White Sox. Would that even happen? Or a basketball player who is going blind goes from the Nicks to the Celtics to the Jazz? Nope. Not going to happen. But lousy writers go from one show to another -- or worse, stay with one soap and drive it into the ground. Nowadays, fan reactions mean nothing to the executives and to the producers and writers. And DO NOT GET ME STARTED ON THE NIELSEN RATINGS!

I've said this one hundred times before, even I'm getting sick of saying it, but the fact of the matter is that these all-important ratings do not take into account the various ways in which people now watch these shows. Nielsen ratings do not measure DVRs or TiVo. They don't count when someone goes to a network's website and watches an episode.

And when people compare today to the heady days of the 1980s, I want to scream. Yes, I grant you that you had terrific writers working then, especially the late Doug Marland who elevated "As the World Turns" to must-watch television with his stories -- a man who recognized telling tales that involved multiple generations. But you also had fewer choices as far as channels to watch. Cable television was still in its infancy and hadn't made the in-roads it had. Viewers were still pretty much watching the big three (or four, if you counted Fox) networks. Nowadays, there's so much competition for eyeballs.

I'm saddened too for the actors in the city of New York. After "As the World Turns" goes off the air, there will only be one soap left in Manhattan -- "One Life to Live" -- and there have already been rumblings that it is on the chopping block. New York has gotten to be an expensive place to live, yes, but the talent pool there is extraordinary and I'm sick and tired of people not giving the actors who appear on daytime their due. Yes, there are the occasional "hair models" (as Nelson Branco of TV Guide Canada has dubbed them) but there are also many stage trained performers who appear on these shows -- actors whose names may not mean much to people outside of a small group but people like Scott Holmes, Ilene Kristen, Larry Bryggman, Kathleen Widdoes, Ellen Parker, and so on. Actor's actors.

Clearly the networks are in panic. Look at how NBC has virtually surrendered their primetime lineup to the competition with the boneheaded move to put Jay Leno on every night at 10pm. Oprah Winfrey has announced she's leaving daytime in 2011. Daily talk shows fail fairly regularly (Bonnie Hunt being the latest victim). Game shows are back in vogue. Yeah, I want to sit around and watch something I never watched when I was younger. "Price Is Right"? Who cares? "Password"? That died when Allen Ludden did. "Let's Make a Deal"? Sure. I want my daytime dramas back.

I know I'm just venting but I've met people who worked in this industry and it really pains me to see them treated so poorly by short-sighted executives. It won't change anything. But I do know that I will not be buying any more Procter & Gamble products. It's won't save the show or bring it back but it will at least bring me some slight satisfaction.