Browsing: The Chew

Ratings for the week of October 3-7, 2011 have not come out for soap operas as of this writing, but ratings for “The Chew” are! The talk show that replaced “All My Children” in the ABC Daytime lineup is now down to an average of just 1.78 million viewers tuning in for cooking advice according to Marc Berman of TV Media Insights.

ABC’s flagship station will likely leave some New York soap fans upset Monday when the affiliate pre-empts “The Chew” and “One Life to Live” for continuous coverage of the 67th Annual Columbus Day parade, relegating both shows to the early hours of Tuesday morning.

Marc Berman of TV Media Insights has been doing an excellent job in reporting the overnight ratings data for ABC’s new daytime talk show “The Chew,” which replaced soap opera “All My Children” in the 1:00 PM ET/12:00 PM PT timeslot on Monday, September 26. Since the talker debuted it has lost ground compared to “AMC’s” performance at the same point last year in television households. Now more than a week since its debut, Berman has revealed that the show is also losing ground in the all important Women 18-49 sales demographic compared to how “All My Children” had performed as well.

Nelson Branco, best known as the writer of the popular Suds Report column for website TV Guide Canada and his contributions to magazine Hello! Canada is back! This time he’s Uncensored. With Soap Opera: Uncensored fans of Branco will notice the same writing style from his Suds Report, which includes an interview, translated comments on daytime moves, a breakdown of what’s happening on each soap and his uber popular Blind Items.

Each week Entertainment Weekly puts together “The Bullseye,” a gathering of images in which “pop culture news that was right on target” for the week comes together leading to the “events that missed the mark.” For its October 7, 2011 issue, the magazine placed a “Bullseye” on “The Chew’s” Mario Batali.

“All My Children’s” replacement show “The Chew” debuts today, just three days after “AMC” aired its final episode on ABC, and I can’t help myself in wishing it would just go away. No, it isn’t the show or what it is all about. In a perfect world I’d care to watch it from time to time, after all we all have to cook good and healthy meals don’t we? But it is the way the network went about handling “The Chew” which included non-stop advertising during “AMC’s” final weeks on television along with non-stop advertising on soap opera centered websites including Soap Opera Network that I find myself saying “what a way to spit on your audience.”

After news broke today that ABC would be bumping “General Hospital” from its long time 3:00 PM ET/2:00 PM PT timeslot beginning in September 2012 in favor of a new Katie Couric talk show, the network was forced to calm the nerves of fans who are still reeling from the cancellations of “All My Children” and “One Life to Live.” Unfortunately, the network is just delaying the inevitable to placate fans from believing that their favorite soap could be next.

As we all know, four weeks ago Brian Frons, President, Daytime, Disney/ABC Television Group, visited the set of ABC’s “All My Children” to announce the cancellation of the 41-year-old soap live and in person to cast members while also canceling “AMC’s” sister soap “One Life to Live,” whose cast members learned via video feed of the 42-year-old daytime dramas fate. According to Frons, with “The Chew” and “The Revolution” the network will be saving between 30-40% a week on programming costs. It’s easy to see why as Soap Opera Network has your exclusive first look at the new programming that falls under the networks “It’s a Brand New Day” promotional campaign. Materials for the campaign will be sent out to advertisers and press outlets beginning next week as the network presents its 2011-2012 daytime and primetime schedule to Madison Avenue’s elite buyers at the Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center in New York City on Tuesday, May 17. Soap fans are scheduled to protest outside the event from 2:00 – 6:00 PM.

Following months of speculation, the announcement has finally been made official today. ABC has announced plans to cancel two-thirds of their daytime soap line-up. According to reports, “All My Children” will last air in September, while “One Life to Live” will leave the air in January 2012. The move will leave “General Hospital” as the network’s only remaining daytime drama.