Every Soap is Down in the Ratings ... Except the Cancelled 'One Life to Live.' (Huh?)

[Brian Damage]

Okay, maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea for ABC to yank All My Children from the schedule: For the 2010-11 season that ended May 22, the aging sudser was down 18% in the key women 18-49 demo (0.9 rating versus last year’s 1.1 rating). That makes it the lowest-rated soap in daytime, not to mention the least watched (2.4 million this season, down from last year’s 2.7 million). Sorry, Susan Lucci, but that’s just not good.

Remarkably, One Live to Live remained flat this season versus last (1.1) while its numbers went up slightly (from 2.5 million to 2.6 million). And it was the only soap not to dip in the key demo. Every show was down, including The Young and the Restless (1.6 versus last year’s 1.9), General Hospital (1.4 versus 1.5), Bold and the Beautiful (1.0 versus 1.1) and Days of Our Lives (1.2 versus 1.4). Each women 18-49 ratings point equals 659,000 viewers.

Y&R remained the most watched soap at 5.1 million, followed by Bold (3.1 million), General Hospital (2.8 million), and Days (2.7 million).

What’s most remarkable (or depressing, depending on your point of view) is how the soap audience continues to age. GH remains the youngest-skewing sudser in daytime, but its average age is still 51.3. Last year, it was 50.3.

Days is 52.9, down from last year’s 53.6. OLTL is 54.3, up from last year’s 53.4. Y&R is 57.9, up from last year’s 56.9. And AMC is 56.7, up from last year’s 55.5. Bold is 58.7, up slightly from last year’s 58.4. (In comparison, the nets are a lot younger in primetime: NBC is 49.6, CBS is 55.1 and ABC is 51.5).

http://insidetv.ew.com/2011/06/01/so...11/#more-46726