Red Room Where the Writers Are

Last August, blogger Sara Bibel noted that "buried within the addictive train wreck" of reaction (here and here), to the firing of Soap Opera Weekly editor, Carolyn Hinsey, was "some serious commentary about soap opera journalism." This past August, it was fan reaction to an interview with head of ABC Daytime, Brian Frons, posted on The Wall Street Journal website that revealed the limitations of mainstream media coverage of soaps.

It started with the best of intentions and the deluge of virtually identical media coverage that began on April 1st, when CBS announced the cancellation of Guiding Light. WSJ arts and entertainment editor, Richard Turner, was absolutely right that the decline of soaps had become "kind of a shopworn theme" in the media coverage of GL's cancellation. While Turner admits he's no expert on soaps, he was an editor at TV Guide back in the 1980s, and "remembered that Frons had been a top daytime executive at several networks for 25 years or so, which seemed like valid credentials. And since he didn't work for CBS right now, I thought he'd have a nice outside point of view."  

It didn't quite turn out that way. Frons' snippy and disparaging tone drew the ire of more than 200 fans. Those comments "surprised and fascinated" Turner. He wondered why the reaction was "so swift and angry," and "why so many soap fans are so knowledgeable and passionate about a relatively unknown executive." Turner told me he "thought it might make a good story sometime."

He's right. It would make a great story - several, in fact. But whoever wrote that story, or stories, would first have to sort through, then make sense of, more than 200 comments, which, at first glance, seem to support the opinion of one poster (clearly not a soap fan)who said, "Reading these comments confirms my belief that soap fans are the dumbest people in this country." But scattered among the misspelled, hyperbolic rantings are a number of thoughtful comments that offer far more insight to the current state of soap opera than anything Brian Frons had to say.

Here, in order of their posting, are what I think are the most salient comments, and why:

1:   The real question that should have been posed to him is why are the ABC soaps performing so poorly, in particular General Hospital? Should be self-explanatory.

2:   He's filled his shows with predominantly male writers who don't know the audience. He doesn't know the difference between romance and sleaze. This comment reminded me of a scene between Don and Peggy in Mad Men. Peggy thinks how the Patio soda campaign is using Bye, Bye, Birdie won't appeal to women. Don tells her, "You know how this works Peggy. Men want her and women want to be her." This wasn't always the case with soap opera; when did things change and why?

3:   Change is good when it is progressive and for the betterment of the project. However, when you change characters and history and expect viewers to just sit back and continue to watch you are delusional and should no longer be in charge. Brian Frons thinks that because soaps are fictional shows that he can just express his creative license and change what he doesn't like about basic character structure, legacy storylines or show history. This degrades the integrity of the show and reflects poorly on the actors and scribes when the fault lies solely at the feet of a man who is so out of touch with his audience that he thinks 12 year old girls are going to save the show. I discussed the whole "history as their plaything" here.

4:   Frons is someone who has no respect for women and yet is trying to create entertainment aimed at women. The stories are poorly written and make no sense. The quality of his ABC soaps is abominable except for the talent of most of the actors. He should get his own house in order before he comments on other soaps, which are only slightly behind his in ratings. While soaps have always been marginalized because of their association with women, it's only recently that the much of the storytelling has become outright misogynic. Why is a long story. And again, the commenter notes the lack of context for Frons' remarks.

5:   What kind of management style is it to alienate every fan base you have? Frons is not the only soap exec to alienate his fan base.

6:   Too bad that under his guidance the Soap Network airs almost anything but soaps, and all the soaps he oversees have lost ratings and become frighteningly misogynistic. So if SoapNet's not airing soaps, what are they airing? And why? Re misogyny, it's a recurring theme throughout these comments to which there is no short answer.

7:   What has happened to AMC and soaps in general is shameful, thanks to moronic executives who have lost sight of the entire spirit of the genre in favor of pushing their own warped agendas. Beloved talented veteran actors are phased out by underwear model-esque eye candy, out of belief the only way to attract new young crowds is with hot young bods. I for one prefer mature average bods with actual talent that makes you laugh and cry and anxious for more. Efforts to attract younger viewers without alienating current fans have been a driving force in the soaps' downward spiral.

8:   How in the world does this man still have a job at ABC?? It is utterly ridiculous!! He claims that he can train viewers to like HIS idea of daytime TV. Well, he was wrong on so many levels. And THAT comment alone has made him the most hated person connected to daytime TV He should have been fired for that statement alone. This man thinks that lonely, stay at home moms make up his audience. He couldn't be more wrong. Trust me . . . most of us work, in pretty high positions . . . we just happen to enjoy soaps. And I for one, can NEVER be trained to like anything that I don't like. He has systematically taken ALL the romance ouf of daytime television. And for the most part, that is why we watch. This is what happens when execs lose sight of the fact that viewers are human beings and more than sum of their demographic markers.

9:   In my opinion, it's not change that's needed at all ... it's a return to love and romance and the era of the supercouple, which today's writers want to hex. Your 18-49 female demo wants that, Mr. Frons ... they want love stories that last, not stripper poles and grief sex. They want men who loves and respect their women and will put it all on the line and women who who will give that love back. Why? Because that's the type of men women dream of in real life. Soaps are about dreams, Mr. Frons. They're about escaping very real things like credit card debt and lost jobs. They're about escaping the violence you see every day on the nightly news. We don't want your fantasy, Mr, Frons, we want our dreams. And that's where you've gone sadly wrong. This isn't about what you want. It's about what your viewers want ... that 18-39 female demo that you banter about so easily yet know nothing about. Here, and here, are examples of why to survive, I think soaps need to go "back to the future."

10:  I would encourage everyone to buy every couple of the Wall Street Journal if they did an expose on the "REAL" cause of the death of daytime... Brian Frons, Charles Pratt, Bob Guza, and the likes... I would love for Disney too explain why the support Frons disrespect towards women, his promoting violence against women with such charactrers as Ryan Lavery, Todd Manning, Sonny Corinthos....all the while calling them heros.... The fact that such a piece was not among the voluminous coverage of Guiding Light's cancellation illustrates the superficiality of the mainstream media's understanding of soap opera .                                          

11:  Brian Frons believes that women should be either brainless victims or manipuators who work as strippers. This is especially true of the new young women who are chosen because they look like Barbie dolls and their whole lives only revolve around manipulation for the purpose of snaring their man. The other women are victims who weep and swoon without power. This is not the case in popular prime time soaps where women actually have careers and future aspirations even as they move within the soap genre. Brian Frons is personally bringing down the ABC soaps. I've never seen a mainstream media piece on soaps that doesn't take soaps execs' assumptions about their audiences at face value.

12:  Interviewing Brian Frons about why soaps are dying is like interviewing George Bush about why he turned a budget surplus into the biggest deficit in history. You will get nothing but self-serving obfuscation and blame everywhere but where it belongs. So who's a reporter to ask, if not an "expert?" This is not a rhetorical question.  The truth is that ABC soaps' ratings are where Guiding Light's ratings were a year ago. It's only a matter of time - and not much time - before ABC soaps are all history, too. Context, context, context                         

For the past 7 years, he has stubbornly refused to give the customers what they want. Granted, there are competing camps who watch these shows...Camp A may want one couple, Camp B may want another. This is a huge problem for soaps, and it's not just about couple A vs couple B, but how compartmentalized the storytelling has become, aided and abetted by technology.

13:  That he's not at all concerned for the fate of the longest running soap shows his disdain for the shows he's responsible for and the fans of those shows. While I agree that TPTB running soaps continue to make decisions that are destroying the genre, I don't believe that has been their intention. So where's the disconnect? That is the underlying question that must form the framework for any serious consideration of the "REAL cause of the death of soaps" suggested above.

14:  Ageist, sexist, misguided, illogical, whimsical, thoughtless Brian Frons is the one who is ruining All My Children, not the changing marketplace...Meanwhile true soaps are being carried out on premium cable in "Big Love" and "Weeds. So, how much overlap is there between viewers of daytime and primetime soaps?

15:  Wow the response that this article received should be a story in itself. I wonder if WSJ was prepared for the storm they created. Is there a reporter at the WSJ or any other mainstream media outlet with the frame of reference to make sense of these comments?

16:  My problem, not necessarily with what Frons said, is with those sounding the death knell for daytime as if this is the only genre that isn't working commercially. This is not a case where everything is doing well save for soap operas. Take a look around you, folks.                                                 

The entire entertainment industry is evolving faster and faster than we would dream it possible. Primetime ratings are dropping too. The only reason why daytime is the first to feel the pinch is because daytime is a timepart that has always had smaller ratings with people at work and children at school.

But make no mistake, soon we will see the #1 primetime show below a 10.0, if we have not already. I don't know. I don't pay attention to primetime ratings in general. Television is evolving and it is throwing everyone into a tailspin.                          They don't know what form the new tv will take and (most importantly for the network and advertisers) they don't know how to monetize it. It has already happened with the pretty much DOA music industry.                                               

It will happen to television and movies next. The quality or lack thereof (much to my chagrin) has nothing to do with it nor does it have anything to do with any fault with the genre itself. This is part of the larger context within which soaps should be considered.

17:  Soaps shifted to unsustainably more expensive production models to try to compete with primetime and movies, which was always an uphill battle because even in the best of times soaps' budgets were always going to be so much smaller.

And ironically that trend began in the early 80s in an effort to hook the very first generation of women who grew up with an expectation that they would be working outside of the home for most of their adult lives. It wasn't going to happen, even with every soap trying to lure them in during summer vacation while they were in high school and college with their very own Luke and Laura clones running around on location sequences that were edited in post-production to include special effects stunts and to have the whole thing be set to the tune of pop music!                             

Frons may not have been to blame for that trend, if his first job in the business wasn't until the mid-80s, but he's definitely overseen the trend continuing and exacerbating - there should never be CGI on soaps, IMO, not ever.

As someone who came of age since that time and never fit the traditional soap demographics, I can honestly say that everything that drew me into soaps as I was growing up was an element of classic soaps that somehow survived in the changing times. And in that time, the things I once loved have been supplanted more and more by other elements that just detract from that experience.

Soaps could have just continued as they were in the 70s, more or less, only changing their production models only as better technology that was actually cheaper (digital cameras, etc.) emerged, and they would still probably be making at least as much ad revenue as they are now but cost a hell of a lot less to produce. Ironically, with DVR making it so easy to watch whenever you want, they might actually have attracted a cult audience today if they'd stayed true to themselves and actually offered something different than primetime shows and movies.

Or they could have come up with feasible, sustainable attempts to attract different kind of niche audiences. We might still be looking at the end of the industry anyway. But the executives who foisted the second-rate primetime model on soaps in the past 25-30 years, often over the objections of experienced writers and producers who knew better, certainly hastened it. File this comment under "great minds think alike." This poster echoes much of what I wrote in my essay, "The Ironic and Convoluted Relationship between Daytime and Primetime Soap Operas," which will be published next June in "The Survival of the Soap Opera: Strategies for the New Media Age" (University Press of Mississippi).

© 2009 Lynn Liccardo

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