1980-81 Soap Ratings

Written by Bridger Cunningham


The season started with AW shortening its airtime from 90 minutes to 60, deciding to bump AW back 60 minutes to allow Texas to gain a lead.  The network bounced The Doctors to 12:30.  Direct competition from AMC prompted CBS to resort to ABC's dirty tricks and offset the 1:00 start time to leave viewers conflicted about switching the channel to ABC and moved Y&R to 12:30.  In another strategy to offset equally-powerful OLTL, which had a full point lead over ATWT, CBS returned ATWT to its 1:30 timeslot.  This move also bumped SFT from its 12:30 timeslot after crossing its 30th anniversary in the same timeslot.  This move also enabled it to move away from ABC's Ryan's Hope, which edged SFT out in the ratings.




ABC was the place to be as GH was riding the Luke and Laura craze.  Majority of their lineup traipsed the top half of the lineup, with the meat of viewers tuning in between 1:00-4:00.  CBS' shuffle produced lukewarm results, damaging SFT.  And NBC's fortunes failed to improve from Texas occupying the last 30 minutes of formerly popular AW.

Enjoy this entry and want to see how the other seasons ranked?  Follow this link for dozens of other seasons profiled: http://www.tvratingsguide.com/2017/12/tvrg-ratings-library-daytime-soaps.html

Source -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._daytime_soap_opera_ratings

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