Patrick Erwin's Domino hypothesis: Wacky?

Patrick blogged on his website today, reacting to a TVWeek columnist who apparently felt that Patrick's "domino thesis", expressed thusly

”Understand that if GL is canceled, it will start a domino effect. If/when GL and/or DAYS disappears, you can expect other shows to follow quickly in their footsteps.”

was "wacky".

Since I'm all about understanding causal factors and modeling them, this domino hypothesis (what some statisticians would call a Markov chain) is very intriguing to me? In the end, I do not believe that the proposition that the fall of GL will contribute to the fall of other soaps is a testable one. Intuitively, I think he has a point, though.

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1. Per se, the cancellation of Guiding Light will have no necessary effect on any other soap. Just like canceling, say Jericho, had no effect for CBS on Criminal Minds or CSI:Everywhere, I don't think that cancelling GL will necessarily impact any other show.

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2. Will cancellation lead to more or less promotion for other soaps? It really doesn't matter. The loss of GL, in principle, costs a promotion venue for other soaps, pitched at soap watchers. But the reality is that a daytime replacement (say Pyramid) could have soap promotions, and they might actually be more effective, because they might court new non-soap viewers. Moreover, with one recent exception (CBS' promotion of Y&R's Sudden Impact arc), there is no evidence AT ALL that promotion influences short-term ratings. In October 2007, for example, CBS bought ad time on other networks to promote its Y&R Out of the Ashes arc...and ratings actually went down.

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3. It is the "taint of death" that may kill them all. I think there is much greater risk to the genre in further heightening the widespread understanding that daytime is a dying genre. Phil Rosenthal writes in today's Chicago Tribune that

The laws of physics don't change: Mass times acceleration still equals force. But with audiences splintering across an ever-widening spectrum of content, individual mass media outlets simply don't have as much mass as they used to, leaving acceleration to pick up the slack—and it's the speed with which word of that content travels rather than the content itself that creates the impact...."Light" has its own devoutly faithful followers, to be sure, although that number has declined. When it comes to daytime drama, people are far more likely to be talking about the latest blowup on ABC's "The View" which averages 4.25 million viewers.

Translation: "buzz" matters. And the cancellation of Guiding Light, he would argue, is in part because it was no longer buzzworthy. (That's wrong, by the way. Proof: Otalia).

But, in support of Patrick's thesis, the cancellation of Guiding Light produces a followup negative buzz. If "Grandma's soap" or "the oldest soap" or "the only soap to survive radio" dies, it doesn't take much for some cultural consumers to further understand that soaps are a dying genre. And that WILL influence their likelihood of sampling other soaps.

Case in point: "Disco Sucks":

Only by killing disco could rock affirm its threatened masculinity and restore the holy dyad of cold brew and undemanding sex partners. Disco bashing became a major preoccupation in 1977. At the moment when Saturday Night Fever and Studio 54 achieved zeitgeist status, rock rediscovered a rage it had been lacking since the '60s, but this time the enemy was a culture with "plastic" and "mindless" (read effeminate) musical tastes. Examined in light of the ensuing political backlash, it's clear that the slogan of this movement--"Disco Sucks!"--was the first cry of the angry white male. -- Peter Braunstein

The 'Disco Sucks' campaign was a white, macho reaction against gay liberation and black pride more than a musical reaction against drum machines. In England, in the same year as the 'Disco Sucks' demo in America, The Young Nationalist - a British National Party publication - told its readers: 'Disco and its melting pot pseudo-philosophy must be fought or Britain's streets will be full of black-worshipping soul boys.'...Then WLUP-DJ Steve Dahl is credited by many with singlehandedly ending the disco era. On July 12, 1979, after several smaller anti-disco events, Dahl's "Disco Demolition" between games of a twi-night doubleheader at old Comiskey park, ended up with the field completely trashed, and the White Sox forced to forfeit the second game.

It is this reinforcement of soaps as a dying genre ... in the minds of ad executives, network leaders, and cultural consumers that could, in effect, be a Donna-Summer-style-soap-killer.

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4. But here's the thing: Soaps are dying. Short of holding on to GL as some kind of public/historical service, soaps are dying. My recent post with some new prediction models kind of illustrates that inescapable conclusion, I think (albeit, with a little hope thrown in).

In that sense, I really think it is important not to over-inflate the significance of the GL cancel.

Really, truly, rationally, we knew this was coming. Some of us thought it might wait till 2010, but Ellen Wheeler talked candidly about this with the GL bloggers late last year.

Moreover, as that figure above shows, most of us kind of know the pecking order of impending cancellations, and that hasn't changed since GL's cancellation. It is "foreordained" by the numbers and the trends...and the sad fact that for most of the population soaps are now as hopelessly out of date as disco and Lawrence Welk and manual typewriters.

Cultural obsolesence, coupled with changing daytime demographics and changing advertiser economics is what did this.

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5. Whither soap opera? Maybe that is more correctly asked as "what is the future of the serial?"

The future is not in the daytime. The future is not melodramatic. The future is not necessarily woman-oriented. The future is not daily. The future is not on broadcast TV.

The evolution is being televised.

Friday Night Lights. ER. Brothers and Sisters. Lost. True Blood. Continuing themes in NCIS. The serial is really alive and well. Adult drama is live and well (well, thanks to Jay Leno on NBC...maybe not so well right now).

The soap -- a particular commercial form for women to "listen" to at home while ironing and cooking -- that is on the way out. For those of us who loved it, that is lamentable...but we can take comfort in all the contributions soaps have made for most of the 20th century and a smidgen of the 21st.

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6. Wacky? Not at all. Not one bit. But the use of that word "wacky" is a fundamental one--and it displays the kind of cultural bias that soaps have had to work against from the beginning.

• Too commercial (e.g., James Thurber's "Anacinville")
• Too women-oriented (melodrama produces eye rolls in the network executive)
• Too emotional and relationship oriented (that's basically misogyny and, in more recent times, homophobia)
• Too old (When we call them "grandma's stories", we're basically buying into both ageism, and the prevailing belief that generations can't share popular culture)

Wacky is just the latest line of insults that soaps and their supporters have had to endure. So, as we have for the better part of a century, our best course of action is to ignore the insulters. Because they do not understand how these "worlds without end" have given us a sense of home and narrative throughline that runs through our lives. They cannot know what we will be missing, because they never had the joy of experiencing it for themselves in the first place.

Myrtle's Farewell

I have already gone on record with my sadness at the passage "Great Aunt Myrtle". Beyond losing the phenomenal Eileen Herlie, long-term lapsed viewers like me also lost yet another touchstone to the Pine Valley of our memories. And, along with the loss of folks like Darlene Conley (B&B's Sally Spectra), it also seems that the era of the great "broads" (meant with ultimate respect, as strong women who spoke their mind and fiercely protected their "brood") has passed.

So, of course, I would not miss her funeral for the world! In this post, I confess that I feel a bit petty for having some less than positive things to say. I have no complaint about the way Myrtle was honored per se, but I find myself reacting to the fact that I think this funeral was actually a fair demonstration of the relatively poor health of All My Children these days. It is in that "meta" sense that I offer these impressions. I apologize to those who feel AMC is doing better these days, or who loved the episode unabashedly.

Now, let me start with fulsome praise. The fact that AMC would even honor its fallen vet, in the modern era, is remarkable. For a show that just let Julia Barr disappear, this is a terrific gift. There was genuine love, too, from all of the cast members who were present. Thorsten Kaye showed every drop of his true love for Herlie, and his poem at the end was goosebump inducing. The flashbacks were a special treat.

But even as I was grateful for all this, as a lapsed viewer who just watched the "funeral" for Katherine Chancellor on "my" show (Y&R)...well...the contrasts were stunning.

Where was Dr. Joe? Where was Tad? Where was Linc Tyler? Where was granddaugther Skye Alcazar? (They explained that daughter Rae Cummings was overseas).

All in all, there was so much sparseness...in the sets used, the characters used (some of whom had little meaningful connection to Myrtle). There was only one notable return, even though most of Pine Valley has lived with Myrtle at some point.

Sadly, I have to compare this to Y&R, where no expense was spared, from a sumptuous church set, to a half dozen returning favorites (who made sense and were logically connected to Kay).

There was also a heavy handedness in the AMC treatment that I, as a non-regular viewer, didn't like. The tinkling bells everywhere. The gold-burnished fadeouts on the flashbacks. The "crystal ball" made me feel I was watching Passions, and there was no need for that device...especially one that broadcast images to both Opal and Petey simultaneously. That, sadly, purely provoked eye rolls.

In the end, as a "visiting" viewer, it was clear to me that this was a departure episode with very little integration into the larger current canvas of the show. Moreover, as a "historical" episode, apart from a few flashbacks, there was very little attempt to link Myrtle into her larger history on the show. No flashback of Lenny/Langley?

There was no greater testament of how separated today's AMC has come from its' history than when "legacy" character (I know some folks hate that term) Petey Cortland had this exchange with his mother:

Opal: She wasn't fooling anybody. This here crystal ball's the real McCoy. She had this from way back when Phoebe Wallingford pulled her out of a homeless shelter to pose as Kitty Shea's mama.

Pete: Who?

It is such a sign of how much AMC has lost its historical throughline that Petey, legimitately, could have no idea whom his mother Opal she was talking about.

Ah, but in the end, at least Myrtle was honored, and that is all that mattered. In that context, I feel petty even listing these grievances. The heart strings were duly plucked.

It is my own selfish nostalgia...wishing for an AMC of my youth... I call this wish "selfish" because I did not hold up my end of the bargain. I did not "age along" with my old show. I stopped watching some time in the 80s, so AMC doesn't owe me any historical "feel good" hour. Theirs was an episode for current viewers.

Like a real funeral with a family you no longer often see, it was nice, for an hour, to come together with my old show, and some faces I remembered, and say goodbye to that wonderful old friend. The final poem by Thorsten Kaye was a beautiful ending, and I reproduce it here with gratitude, courtesy of the TV Megasite:

Now who will lead our carnival?
And who will make us stronger?
Who will mend our broken sleep when she is here no longer?
For whose part do we stand and bow?
What stories do we tell?
And will we memorize the day when great and greatness fell?
Say will this valley overcome, and will these shadows fade?
And will we lift our eyes to see the beauty that she made?
The disappearing last of her that leads to worlds unknown
has left a path to softly tread when sadness wanders home.
I'll meet thee where the highland winds divide wild mountain tyne,
where I will be forever yours and you,
forever mine.

Wow! GL and the blogosphere!

I'll get back to J. Bernard Jones one more time in my next post.

But, in the meantime, have you been following the blogosphere?

Michael Fairman and Sara Bibel and Patrick Erwin and Roger Newcomb and Soaps.com's Matt Purvis have all been invited to Peapack, NJ to have a whole set of in depth encounters with the GL creative team from top to bottom.

Regardless, it was only recently that Tom Casiello reminded us of the SuperFan (my word), and the use of social networking and devoted fans to "spread the word" about media properties. Sam Ford (sample blog here) has often talked about this whole area of "convergence culture", and is basically single-handedly introducing the concept to "thinking fans" who care about soaps.

There can be no clearer sign that the GL team remains committed to moving the show into the new world. I give much credit to that team. Even though I don't know how long the GL experiment can last in this economy, and I'm not sure they're doing everything right, I want to kiss them all for trying. I can't wait to hear the many insights that will flow from this.

Sara Bibel mentions that it is daring and innovative (I think that was her phrase) for GL to invite all these bloggers. True. Bloggers are a fiercely independent lot, and surely not part of the publicist-controlled media.

More importantly, I think it speaks volumes about the declining (last gasp?) influence of the soap opera magazines. As Roger Newcomb has railed for a while now, GL can't even get a COVER of SOD. So, how clever for GL to bypass the old media, and go straight to the new! This can not only help GL...it further helps establish the legitimacy of this newer form of disseminating information and publicity.

Bravo to the whole lot of you!