Well, I am fortunate enough be good friends with a key member of this new soaps team! Currently over in Atlanta filming first set of episodes and all going well! So, very excited for this new soap and catching up with friends from it soon I hope. Fingers crossed it succeeds in the ratings - now it's an exciting wait for beginning of Jan!
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I was actually hoping (and maybe even expecting) that CBS would air a preview on Sunday night in primetime after Tracker and The Equalizer to get people in the mood for the daytime premiere on Monday.
The time slot is appropriate, but it's not good news for General Hospital.
The time slot is appropriate, but it's not good news for General Hospital.
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For people who work in that industry I hope it succeeds but in this era of streaming sites, reality garbage, social media etc, etc...I think a new soap will somehow struggle to gain traction. This newbie really needs to stand out from the daytime crowd. Do they risk having the story move at snails pace? A recent viewing of Y&R and B&B suggests I can revisit those soaps in 6 months time and the same characters will be having the same conversation. A new soap requires a killer opening episode and don't be afraid to kill off characters just as viewers become invested in them. Be daring...be brave. And I hope - at least - CBS have given this new soap a 12 month opportunity to bed in with the viewers.
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I am hopeful it will be a modernized soap which will help it pick up viewers. The character descriptions released sound much more modern that what many of the US soaps are telling right now. The creative team also has a history of knowing how to do soap well. Another thing I love is that they're filming in Atlanta at a studio that can accommodate indoor and outdoor shooting. The creator mentioned watching them film their first days of interiors and exteriors so I'm hoping that means it'll have a more modern look. One of the cast members also mentioned that she can't wait for us to see the cliffhangers after the first week of filming. I love that because that tells me they know they need to hit the ground running.
Another thing they have in their favor is the streaming era. It was just announced this week that Days of Our Lives is the #1 show on Peacock. Between their affordability and streaming potential, I think soaps are becoming more valuable in the post-strike era of cutting costs. If the show is good then it should be able to pick up an audience on Paramount Plus. Now live ratings? I have no idea. GH has been struggling to hit 2 million viewers for about a year now, but they've really been amping their stories up and revamping their cast to get viewers back. The Talk is averaging around 1.3 million viewers. If the show can maintain at least 2 million viewers I think it'll be considered a big hit, but at the very least it needs to do better than what The Talk is averaging. For reference, Y&R is averaging 3.24 million viewers and B&B has 2.81 million.
Everything I'm seeing seems so positive and it seems like they're invested in creating a good show. I just hope it comes together and that viewers give it a shot.
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First teaser has been released.
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The trailer is exactly what interests me least about daily soaps: the dramas of rich people. I prefer the middle-class or poor people, some of whom are hungry for wealth, while others are content at their level and try to solve their problems.
I am very skeptical as to whether the soap will work. If semi-official information is to be believed, 1.5 million Americans are now watching Y&R on Paramount+ and almost 1 million are watching B&B there. If BTG could achieve similar streaming numbers to B&B, it would already be a great success, but Paramount+ doesn't actually need a third soap that brings them daily clicks, they need a show to stabilize the 2 p.m. time slot. Maybe BTG will actually manage to keep enough B&B fans, but from the trailer it looks like a reality show turned into a daytime drama, and is that what CBS viewers want to see?
I am very skeptical as to whether the soap will work. If semi-official information is to be believed, 1.5 million Americans are now watching Y&R on Paramount+ and almost 1 million are watching B&B there. If BTG could achieve similar streaming numbers to B&B, it would already be a great success, but Paramount+ doesn't actually need a third soap that brings them daily clicks, they need a show to stabilize the 2 p.m. time slot. Maybe BTG will actually manage to keep enough B&B fans, but from the trailer it looks like a reality show turned into a daytime drama, and is that what CBS viewers want to see?
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I know there is a lot of enthusiasm floating around in the build-up to the premiere of this series, and I want it to succeed. A rising tide lifts all boats, as they say. But if that preview is an accurate depiction of what they're going to produce daily....I'm worried. I hope that this is just a "sizzle reel" type of preview that one occasionally sees in film trailers where the PR department tries to make the movie appear to be something different than it is. I've been around long enough to know that many such productions (TV shows, movies, etc.) target certain audiences--that is, rather than being produced for mass audiences, they are looking to become a niche hit that can eventually spread its appeal outward. In short, I know some stuff just isn't made for me, and that's okay. Other than camp-master Ron Carlivati, the names behind the show are known for solid, traditional soap opera and not the sort of camp parody that the preview seems to be offering. Those who tune in expecting Tyler Perry-esque, nostril-flaring camp and don't get it will be disappointed and likely tune out, while the old farts like me who want traditional melodrama would see this type of OTT drama in commercials and never tune in to begin with.
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'Beyond the Gates' team previews groundbreaking Black daytime soap
'Beyond the Gates' creator and daytime soap vet Michele Val Jean and executive producer Sheila Ducksworth preview their first daytime soap centered on Black characters since 1989’s 'Generations' for an exclusive first look at the series: 'This is a different kind of world.'
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To be fair, historically prime time previews have done diddly-squat for daytime soaps. So I can see why they're skipping it and getting "premiere hype" for the actual premiere. It might help them to get more eyeballs on the actual time slot.
As for the show itself... I hope it'll do well, particularly on streaming since that feels part in what's driving this. The Talk clearly doesn't have a lot of rewatch value, while people might regularly check out a soap on a streamer even if they don't watch it on the exact drop date. Hopefully it'll lead to more soaps being developed specifically for streaming eventually.
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Ironically, the past efforts at premiering a soap in primetime could be viewed as an early effort at "time shifting," allowing viewers to see the show in an unusual time slot. CBS probably believes that anyone who wants to watch BTG in such an unusual time slot, they'll just watch it in Paramount Plus. Then again, if the show was premiering in the middle of summer (when CBS has no original programming to put on), they likely would have given it a primetime premiere slot. They got so desperate for original shows last summer that they started showing stuff like Yellowstone (from their Paramount Network) to fill slots. Those primetime episodes of soaps we saw in the 1990s and 2000s was more about filling up a scant primetime schedule than drawing actual ratings.
The networks historically also have hated airing soaps in primetime due to the "soap opera look" of videotaped soaps rather than filmed content. They would often shoot the primetime episodes on film just to please the network execs but the different look further alienated the daytime viewer who tuned in and saw their "typical" soap looking so different just because of the filming process.
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Which daytime soaps premiered / previewed in primetime? I know of Loving, Capitol and possibly Port Charles. Daytime soaps aren’t a huge thing in this part of the world these days but I remember ITV screening the Crossroads premiere in primetime when it was revived back in the early 00’s.
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Those are the only ones I recall, as well. Some soaps like Port Charles, The City and especially Texas were spin-offs that got ample setting-up opportunities on their parent shows.
When The Edge of Night transitioned from CBS to ABC in 1975, ABC wisely produced a 90-minute episode that introduced all the characters to its new ABC audience. Rather than air it in primetime they just pre-empted one of their regular daytime shows to accommodate a triple-sized EON episode. However, when Search for Tomorrow went from CBS to NBC, they only got a separate ad campaign to herald their arrival--no expanded episode or anything.
When The Edge of Night transitioned from CBS to ABC in 1975, ABC wisely produced a 90-minute episode that introduced all the characters to its new ABC audience. Rather than air it in primetime they just pre-empted one of their regular daytime shows to accommodate a triple-sized EON episode. However, when Search for Tomorrow went from CBS to NBC, they only got a separate ad campaign to herald their arrival--no expanded episode or anything.
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“Follow the Search”
As discussed on other threads, in fairness to NBC, what they may have lacked in initial promotion for SFT, they made up for with their various efforts to keep the show afloat during its four years at the network.
If I recall, the Crossroads primetime premiere was beaten ratings wise by the Nick Berry drama In Deep, scheduled also at 9pm.
Home and Away got a special Sunday evening preview before it restarted on Channel 5, as the soap had been off a year due to ITV activating a clause in their contract with Seven Network Australia.
NBC aired a Sunset Beach special in primetime during the Shockwave storyline in an attempt to help the Californian soap's ailing ratings, in the US at least.
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It was a clip show of sorts. They took six weeks of episodes (the earthquake and tsunami, along with the capsizing of the boat) and edited them down to a "special". It appeared to be an effort to re-purpose/monetize that very expensive series of episodes to get some kind of return on the investment. Which....I have to give them props for the effort, especially the editors who made the much-shortened storylines "flow" despite some harsh edits. I'd never seen a show stretch one day of onscreen events into six full weeks (that is, thirty, hour-long episodes), but the Shockwave plotline didn't have much chance to drag.
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Here is an in depth behind the scenes segment on the show:
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She's such a good get. She was really amazing when she was on The Bold and the Beautiful and very popular. I remember at one point Brad Bell said she was the new leading lady of the show. Then he came up with the idea to make her character trans and after that initial storyline she started to shift into the background. All of the edge the character had slowly went away until they wrote her off.
I'm happy Michele Van Jean brought her along for the ride here. From the promos she definitely looks like she'll be an interesting piece of the puzzle.
I'm happy Michele Van Jean brought her along for the ride here. From the promos she definitely looks like she'll be an interesting piece of the puzzle.