Soap operas have dominated British TV from the 1950s right up to present day. EastEnders, Coronation Street, Emmerdale, Neighbours, Family Affairs and Hollyoaks dominate our viewing. We love the drama, characters and storylines (well, some of us) but how long will they last? When will Betty pull her last pint and when will Dot have her last gossip?
your opinions
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Dot: Awwwwwwww, Jim, I wanna' go to the caf!
I think you've answered your own question there. If a soap goes in terminal decline and starts to scrape rock bottom then, like an other programme it would be scrapped. Crossroads (old & new) and Brookside are prime examples. But since the top soaps gain 9 million and upwards they aren't going to be ditched.
With the decline in soap ratings compared to their high audiences of around 15-20 million for each episode, and the ubiquity of some of them, I would say soaps are going through a period of saturation.
They won't die out, but I do think that BBC and ITV need to cut back and stop relying so much on their soaps and cut back on episodes, for the sake of not irritating and alienating their audiences, and to allow more time for higher quality production by cast and crew - it must be a hard task for all involved to churn out five to six episodes of drama a week, definitely worthy of respect but leads to the danger of burnout.
I think the axing of Brookside should act as a warning to all other soaps. Get them down to 3 episodes a week.
Your contradicting yourself their as Brookie remained at 3 episodes a week (or one ninety minute episode) until the very end.
It was the scheduling of Brookside that made it suffer - and though it's easy to blame C4, they were only reacting to increased competition from other soaps, which began to take the 8-9pm slot.
Brookside was in a far better state in it's final months than EastEnders has been in for the last couple of years - but though it's widely agreed by critics and even insiders that EE isn't as good as it should be, I can't see it being axed in the near future.
It doesn't have to be when the soaps are "failing." General Hospital (UK) was taken off air while it still commanded huge audiences, ATV simply decided to end it while it was at the top.
The same with the original Crossroads, it was reaching two million more viewers than Emmerdale Farm when it was axed. It was the UK's third watched soap. So they don't have to be failures to go. If a television company wants to take a new direction, then they may go simply for that reason - like Scottish Television did recently when it pulled High Road for something more gritty.
I think the axing of Brookside should act as a warning to all other soaps. Get them down to 3 episodes a week.
Your contradicting yourself their as Brookie remained at 3 episodes a week (or one ninety minute episode) until the very end.
It was the scheduling of Brookside that made it suffer - and though it's easy to blame C4, they were only reacting to increased competition from other soaps, which began to take the 8-9pm slot.
Brookside was in a far better state in it's final months than EastEnders has been in for the last couple of years - but though it's widely agreed by critics and even insiders that EE isn't as good as it should be, I can't see it being axed in the near future.
I never said Brookside didnt remain at 3 times a week, I just think the axing of it should act as a warning as it went pretty poor in its final 3-4 years and there are some signs that other soaps are showing at the moment (Hollyoaks for example) that it could go the same way as Brookside. Hollyoaks at 5 times a week is dire, 3 was enough.
I think the axing of Brookside should act as a warning to all other soaps. Get them down to 3 episodes a week.
Your contradicting yourself their as Brookie remained at 3 episodes a week (or one ninety minute episode) until the very end.
It was the scheduling of Brookside that made it suffer - and though it's easy to blame C4, they were only reacting to increased competition from other soaps, which began to take the 8-9pm slot.
Brookside was in a far better state in it's final months than EastEnders has been in for the last couple of years - but though it's widely agreed by critics and even insiders that EE isn't as good as it should be, I can't see it being axed in the near future.
Brookside was going down the pan before they started shifting it about the schedule -it was the OTT sensational storylines that did for it before that. And that is the real danger - relying on soaps too much to deliver high audiences for the next shows, too many episodes, too many storys - the need for a mass murder etc to launch every new series of I'm a Celebrity - they will simply wear them out!
I think soaps will continue but only if the quality stays high, and the TV Execs don't flog the golden geese too much - and it's running very, very close to the line at the moment. Frankly I resent Corrie being on twice on a Monday.
It doesn't have to be when the soaps are "failing." General Hospital (UK) was taken off air while it still commanded huge audiences, ATV simply decided to end it while it was at the top.
The same with the original Crossroads, it was reaching two million more viewers than Emmerdale Farm when it was axed. It was the UK's third watched soap. So they don't have to be failures to go. If a television company wants to take a new direction, then they may go simply for that reason - like Scottish Television did recently when it pulled High Road for something more gritty.
Same goes for Upstairs, Downstairs and On The Buses (yes I know they're not soaps) but LWT at the time decided to end them whilst they were still on a high, and quite right they were too, as they're still liked and well respected programmes today.
Brookside started to go down the pan at around 1999 for many reasons, it was relying on too much OTT effects and what have you in order to gain ratings. The show was starting to loose it's originality as many of the storylines in Brookside were being done by Coronation Street, Eastenders etc etc.
When Brookside ended in November 2003 there was an interview with Phil Redmond (in some magazine) and he mentioned that from 1999 onwards Channel 4 wanted to phase it out, as this was a time when the station was changing it's way, thanks to the addition of Cricket, Big Brother and new Lifestyle programmes, there was to be no room for Brookside on the new Channel 4 eventually.
You could say Channel 4 could be blamed for moving it about constantly, but it remained in it's usual days, it was just either shown at 8.00pm or 8.30pm, many people just started getting bored of it really, it was producing nothing new. S4C had the best solution by showing at 10.00pm and apparently Phil Redmond praised their scheduling of the programme.
Though as said here and I agree too, the programme started to get better towards the end, certainately within the last 6 months (when I started watching it again) as they were wrapping it up and tying the loose ends quite well. Also again due to the lousy scheduling they could get away with anything, it started to take advantage of it's very late slot too.
Only in the last episode they returned to the very long scenes that made an opinion from the character, but this was more about getting Phil Redmond's views to Channel 4 bosses.
It doesn't have to be when the soaps are "failing." General Hospital (UK) was taken off air while it still commanded huge audiences, ATV simply decided to end it while it was at the top.
The same with the original Crossroads, it was reaching two million more viewers than Emmerdale Farm when it was axed. It was the UK's third watched soap. So they don't have to be failures to go. If a television company wants to take a new direction, then they may go simply for that reason - like Scottish Television did recently when it pulled High Road for something more gritty.
Same goes for Upstairs, Downstairs and On The Buses (yes I know they're not soaps) but LWT at the time decided to end them whilst they were still on a high, and quite right they were too, as they're still liked and well respected programmes today.
Brookside started to go down the pan at around 1999 for many reasons, it was relying on too much OTT effects and what have you in order to gain ratings. The show was starting to loose it's originality as many of the storylines in Brookside were being done by Coronation Street, Eastenders etc etc.
When Brookside ended in November 2003 there was an interview with Phil Redmond (in some magazine) and he mentioned that from 1999 onwards Channel 4 wanted to phase it out, as this was a time when the station was changing it's way, thanks to the addition of Cricket, Big Brother and new Lifestyle programmes, there was to be no room for Brookside on the new Channel 4 eventually.
You could say Channel 4 could be blamed for moving it about constantly, but it remained in it's usual days, it was just either shown at 8.00pm or 8.30pm, many people just started getting bored of it really, it was producing nothing new. S4C had the best solution by showing at 10.00pm and apparently Phil Redmond praised their scheduling of the programme.
Though as said here and I agree too, the programme started to get better towards the end, certainately within the last 6 months (when I started watching it again) as they were wrapping it up and tying the loose ends quite well. Also again due to the lousy scheduling they could get away with anything, it started to take advantage of it's very late slot too.
Only in the last episode they returned to the very long scenes that made an opinion from the character, but this was more about getting Phil Redmond's views to Channel 4 bosses.
I agree about S4C, I always watched it at 10pm on Tues, Wed and Fri during the 1990s, Channel 4 schedule always seemed to clash with things on ITV.
I agree the show went down the pan in 1999, up until then it was a brilliant programme but it went way OTT with so many explosions and far fetched storylines, and its final year was the worst ever. IMO they should have ended it in 2002 instead of turning it into a Saturday afternoon and then a late night soap as it just went appalling after that.
Corrie are already going down the sensational storylines route with murders, explosions etc and the show is being moved around the schedule by ITV a lot more.
What's interesting is that although there are no major signs of soaps failing to pull in good viewing figures, it does seem we are at saturation point in terms of numbers. I can't think of a soap that started in the last, say, 10-15 years that is actually still on air. I guess Family Affairs is one. But all the others bombed. Instead they've cunningly turned dramas into soap / drama combos, eg The Bill, Casualty, etc.
What's interesting is that although there are no major signs of soaps failing to pull in good viewing figures, it does seem we are at saturation point in terms of numbers. I can't think of a soap that started in the last, say, 10-15 years that is actually still on air. I guess Family Affairs is one. But all the others bombed. Instead they've cunningly turned dramas into soap / drama combos, eg The Bill, Casualty, etc.
