Jess Walton "hysteria"? I think not!

I adore Sara Bibel's blog. She has this no-bullshit way of cutting through the melodrama (a task I fail at) and sort of offering an incisive analysis. She is usually spot-on, because she blends industry knowledge, phenomenological experience from the Y&R creative team, and a history as a ratings analyst. That ivy-league education doesn't hurt either.

But Sara espoused something about the recent Jess Walton contract negotiations that I disagree with. (For those not following every twist, Y&R issued a recasting call for "Jill", ostensibly because Walton was 'under the weather'. Sources indicated, however, that it was really part of a tense negotiation between Walton and Sony/Bell/Y&R in which TPTB sought to lower Walton's episode guarantee and/or rate. The recast notice was publicized by Soap Opera Digest last Friday, but by late Monday, initial word came that Walton had re-signed. In other words, one side or both blinked).

Sara said this:

Jess Walton is leaving The Young & The Restless because she’s sick! No, it’s because the show is going to cut her appearances to once a month and her salary to minimum wage! Deidre Hall is going to take over the role. No, Anna Stuart. Actually, Jessica Lange and Goldie Hawn are going to dye their hair and split the role in a casting coup. Even though the show can’t afford Walton. Wait, Walton just signed a new deal. Nevermind.

As for l’affaire de Walton, it seems like it was a standard contract negotiation that unfortunately played out in the press. Unfortunately, everyone in daytime is being asked to take pay cuts these days. Hell, everyone in America is. Nobody likes them. Rest assured, your favorite soap star won’t be showing up at your local food bank anytime soon. They’re still making six figures, just less than they were before. Soaps often take the step of putting out casting calls for recasts when actors balk. It isn’t a friendly tactic. Sometimes it backfires (see Byrne, Martha). But, it often makes people sign on the dotted line. That’s what happened here. The winner, in this case, in the audience who gets to keep watching Walton in the meatiest storyline she has had in years.

Hmmm. Internet over-reaction? Excessive support for an actress during 'customary' negotiations? After all, she won't go hungry (says the previously self-titled 'unemployed' writer).

My view on this is completely different. I think that "l'affaire Walton" demonstrates the new engaged, activist audience, and there are many lessons in the furious weekend of Walton scribblings. At Soap Opera Network, half the posters changed their avatars to Walton images for the weekend!

For the record, the word "hysteria" I use below is the connotation I took from Bibel's piece (and other writers and posters from the same period), and is NOT a quote.

1. Fans had a right to mistrust. A frequent term was the "ABC-Dification of Y&R"...used to refer to the fact that veterans on ABC have been set to recurring or low guarantees...and then become non-viable. This has happened trans-genre.
2. It was compounded by the fact that the LUMINOUS, REMARKABLE, BEST-WORK-OF-HER-CAREER Walton was finally back on the front burner after five years of -- ahem -- misguided storytelling. Now, finally, when Michael Jordan is back and scoring, you're gonna even THREATEN to cut him from the team? This part of the fan response was simply an expression of love -- not hysteria.
3. Y&R itself has a relatively recent history of "botching" (in the fan mind) many of these tense negotiations. While opinions are mixed, the loss of Heather Tom and Victoria Rowell is attributed by many to an unproductively unflinching TPTB. Injudicious cast cutting, in the eyes of some, cost us Jerry Douglas and Don Diamont. Ridiculous inflexibility led to long hiatuses for fan faves like Melody Thomas Scott (who reportedly cleared out her dressing room), Eric Braeden, Joshua Morrow, and Sharon Case. Nobody wanted that for "Jill", the sole "legacy character" who has been there from the beginning.
4. It is true that the news about the negotiations was remarkably 'real time'. Just a few years ago, I'd get my news about 'tense negotiations' from Soap Opera Digest, and by the time I read it, a new deal had already been made. Therefore, it is quite a sign of journalistic evolution that the news now was immediate. Was the fan response "hysteria". In my opinion, the new era of real-time news means that the fans were co-participants in the negotiation! Like a papal nomination, we were thronging outside the Vatican, looking for the color of the smoke.
5. "Tense" negotiations, eh? But they got resolved over a weekend! During that period, many people -- informed by the real time news -- sent notes of protest and support to CBS, Bell, Sony and Walton. One source (another fallacious internet rumor? maybe?) indicates to me that these notes DID reach TPTB, and that some executives WERE surprised at the level of pro-Walton support.

Let's pretend the last point is true? Maybe the fan voices ("hysteria"), in some small way, shifted the valence of the negotiations. Maybe the fan voices made it just a little harder for TPTB to maintain the claim to Walton of "you can be easily replaced". Maybe, just maybe, "hysterical" fans helped prevent the kind of painful, damaging, protracted negotations (often with "bad" outcomes from a fan perspective) that happened before?

Who knows. Even if the fan voices were irrelevant, one cannot underestimate the powerful well-being benefits of a little self-efficacy and locus of control. The illusion of playing a small role in affecting an outcome is -- itself -- a wonderful thing. If that weren't true, why else would many of us go out and vote in elections?

In the end, though, I love happy endings! Glad you're sticking around, Jess!

PS: Ms Walton, I hope you have given up smoking! (A lot of us were scared by that 'under the weather' comment)

On the Rise of the Soap Superblog

An interesting thing happened yesterday. Eric Braeden did his 9,000th interview for The Man Who Came Back. (Just kidding...but he has generated terrific press. Publicist Charles Sherman should be pleased that even the New York Times covered the story. *I stuck a mini-review at the bottom of this post).

Anyway, the interview was with Soaptownusa.com. Not Soap Opera Digest or Soap Opera Weekly. With a little soap blog. (Of course, he does plenty of interviews with the mags too).

New, fan-driven media are on the rise. It seems the old soap (print) press may be left behind in the dust?

Eric Braeden is a sharp businessman. His decision to do an interview with a blogger suggests, to me, that the worm has turned. Moreover, it isn't just Braeden. If you look at the major fan-driven internet radio shows, like Buzzworthy Radio or In The Zone or Stardish Radio or Daytime Confidential, each of them have had major and minor soap stars...in spades!...during this last year. It is not just actors. These radio shows have also featured some top writers, giving die-hard fans FINALLY some insight into the creative process. (My only quibble about the radio stuff is that it is very hard for hearing impaired people like me, especially since mostly telephones are used for the interviews. I wish wish wish there could be transcripts. Indeed, if that were to happen, there would be widespread forwarding...and the impact of these interviews would be greater. Look at what happened with Victoria Rowell!).

And, if we want to talk about the ascendancy of soap blogs (and, I believe, the decline of soap magazines), we need only look at the Guiding Light Blogger-experiment. Someone is paying attention!

That this all ties in to the concept of new media, and finding new ways of having active, engaged fans promote the genre to their peers...something Sam Ford and Tom Casiello have talked to us about...is even more engaging!

In addition, there is the emergence of two new classes of websites that, I think, attract many eyeballs. The first is the rise of the just-in-time news site! Week after week, Nelson Branco breaks major news and gossip, and he also consolidates other news in an unrivalled way. Daily, Daytime Confidential does the same thing, with a mix of opinion and spoilers that is unrivalled. And Roger Newcomb consolidates news, globally, several times a day.

The poor old print outlets, with their delayed release and poor mailing times by their fulfillment houses end up giving us old, cold news. When you take what they offer wrapped up in ads for psychics and collector plates and "fashion spreads" that have little interest for most readers...the days of the clunking magazine dinosaurs seem, sadly, nigh.

There was a time when the mags were the only game in town. What a blessing! But that era seems to have passed.

Also emerging is the "opinion columnist". Now, opinions are never in short supply on the internet (heck, look at me!), but there are a few columnists with genuine street cred! From soap writers Sara Bibel and Tom Casiello to soap-mag-pioneers like Marlena Delacroix, we get opinions based on experience. The insights are truly breathtaking sometimes!

Roger Newcomb and Tom Casiello, in particular, have further been doing something that the magazines fail to do: Embrace history! Roger has shared excerpts from many historical clippings (e.g., Time, Newsweek) on the soaps. Tom has also shared some truly amazing historical documents. SteveFrame's SoapsWEB is a treasure trove of archived historical material. No magazine...no "professional" site...can touch that!

More and more, if I want to look for good criticism, insider insight into the creative and marketing process, breaking soaps "news", or historical documents and perspectives, I look to the Superblogs. Can the soap magazines survive?

On the other hand, can the bloggers survive? For the most part, I suspect, we are seeing "labors of love". If they don't pay the rent too, are they sustainable? Maybe...because they are written for love, not money.

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* Mini-review:

(By the way, I saw the film. You know...for what it was billed as...a Western revenge picture...it's a fine movie. It is really terrific, as a long-time Braeden fan, to see him bring his particular intensity to this genre. The film is genuinely discomfiting in places -- which it is meant to be. The only sad part is that the film was originally meant to be centered around a large African American labor action in the Reconstruction era. There are still threads of that story in the film, but most of it ended up in the "deleted scenes" part of the DVD. Clearly, they decided to tighten the narrative, and to focus on the more dramatically interesting violation-and-revenge arc. I'd recommend the film to anyone who enjoys Braeden, and wants to see him in a different milieu. Since he had total creative control over the project, the film also offers insights into the kinds of stories that Braeden likes to tell.)

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!

What J. Bernard Jones Started (Part 2)

(Part 1 is here, Part 3 is here, and the source article that inspired this post is here. And thanks to Sound and Fury for the shoutout!).

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Part 2. Anticipatory Socialization and Illusory Control.

In his excellent "Soap on a Rope" blog entry, J. Bernard Jones wonders:

Once a particular narrative has taken hold in the minds of fans it can be hell trying to ask folk to consider a slightly different view. Nonetheless, I think it's worth a try.

I am willing to admit that I could be completely wrong. However, I am reminded of something that my late mother used to say all the time: when you speak things into existence, they are liable to come true. Another way of saying it is "be careful what you wish for..."

Do the fans want Soap Opera do disappear? No, I do not believe we do. But there is something a little off in the incessant negativity in some quarters about the possibility/probability of it all, as if some fans are all but waiting for the final episode of General Hospital or the last fade out of Y&R to say, "See, we told you so! Nobody listened to us! If they had paid attention to the fans this genre would have been saved! We're the fans! We know everything there is to know about this genre and if the idiots in charge had only listened, we would still have love in the afternoon!"

This is powerful stuff. You need not look very far to see the incredible negativism in most quarters regarding soaps. Where does it come from?

I think there are two main sources (beyond group-think...which is really an important factor on internet message boards and has personally influenced me; when bright, articulate people make passionate and persuasive arguments, and there is widespread agreement...it is hard not to follow along): anticipatory socialization and illusory control.

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Let's start with the definitions.

Per Wikipedia:

Anticipatory socialization: Anticipatory socialization refers to the processes of socialization in which a person "rehearses" for future positions, occupations, and social relationships.

A typical example cited here is that of an older married woman who experiences the death of many of her friends' husbands. Even though her husband is still living, she knows his time is likely to come too...and she, like her friends, will be an older single woman. So, in her mind, in small subtle ways, often unconsciously, she starts rehearsing for life without him. She makes sure she knows where the paperwork is. She makes sure she has a credit card in her own name. She even thinks, in her daydreams, sometimes, about how she will handle parties and responsibilities, etc, when he is gone.

This is the process, it is said, that often makes widowhood relatively easier for older women than for younger women. For younger women, it is a total shock...they didn't expect it! But for older women, while still sad and life-altering, the shock is blunted by expectation. (I'm not being sexist here. This is mostly a female phenomenon since, on average, men do not expect to outlive their wives. I'm also not being homophobic; this is pretty much a unique phenomenon of heterosexual marriages). There are other times when this kind of socialization occurs, as in when a loved one is passing from a long, protracted terminal illness. Or when a teenager practices, in their own mind, for adult roles.

Illusory control: the tendency for human beings to believe they can control, or at least influence, outcomes that they demonstrably have no influence over.

The same source has this nice illustration:

One simple form of this fallacy is found in casinos: when rolling dice in craps, it has been shown that people tend to throw harder for high numbers and softer for low numbers. Under some circumstances, experimental subjects have been induced to believe that they could affect the outcome of a purely random coin toss. Subjects who guessed a series of coin tosses more successfully began to believe that they were actually better guessers, and believed that their guessing performance would be less accurate if they were distracted.

An illusion of control over certain external events could be a basis for belief in psychokinesis.

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Okay, I think you know where I am going here.

I do not think the animus that many of us have encountered about the soap genre is simply function-less, free form negativism. I think that what we are seeing are typical, normal, healthy emotional responses to a "terminal condition". It doesn't surprise us that both anticipatory socialization and illusory control are often discussed in the context of "dealing with death". It is all about going through grieving steps.

This anger is a "rage, rage against the dying of the light". We talk (and talk and talk) about the soap-less days to come, in part, because it will blunt the pain when that day (soon) comes. This is not being done with relish or pleasure. Instead, it is like bracing for a blow. Moreover, for lovers of the soap genre, we need to do it.

Take Another World for example. The people who were most hurt by that cancellation were those who felt it could be avoided. The protesters, the people who blamed the network and TPTB. When the show was cancelled, some even boycotted NBC. The anger was a roaring fire in them. That is because they had not, in advance, accepted the inevitability of the outcome.

I contrast this with the current fan animus about Guiding Light. The writing is so UTTERLY on the wall, it might as well be hieroglyphs. But, honestly, I think the fan-bashing of Ellen Wheeler and the show is ultimately a way of focusing a diffuse anger about the myriad factors that brought us to this point. In other words, Ellen is a convenient target. GL dropped to the near-bottom of the soap rankings in the EIGHTIES. Ellen was still playing Marley when that happened. Where GL is today is only, in SMALL measure, her fault.

So why all the rage? First, for mental preparation.

But second, to give the illusion of control.

I get my angriest comments and emails when I write about the idea that "no matter what, no matter who was creatively in charge, soaps would still be where they are today." I have written, on a soap board, that "Irna Phillips and Bill Bell and Douglas Marland could come back from the dead, and still the soaps would be in their current state". People HATE when I say that. Because it implies that broad a set of social forces is responsible for the state of daytime...not creative and corporate malfeasance.

The thing is, if you look at my last post, daytime really is going where all of US broadcast TV is going. This is NOT just about daytime.

But people--especially we Americans--have a very very hard time with concepts like "inevitability", "uncontrollable", etc. The "blame TIIC" theme that is across the board is a very American reaction to the current daytime situation. The must be someone to blame. There must be a way to fix it. There must be hope and optimism that if only a "savior" came along, daytime could be fixed.

I don't think so...I really don't. Zoot suits are gone, except as nostalgia items. So are genuine-article 1960s Thunderbirds. So are eight track cassettes. Each of these had their day. There is no one to blame...this is the march of time and the evolution of fashion, fad, and technology.

Who killed Cock Robin? (err...I mean daytime). All of us.

Did I say no hope? Scratch that...

While we sit here and lament the demise of soaps, CBS' Y&R is kicking ASS. Viewership approaches the classic days of yore...just in new ways.

1. Broadcast Neilsen ratings are at an all time low for Y&R on CBS. Last week's average household rating was an all-time low of 3.4. Surely I'm delusional? Not really.

2. Soapnet, in October, reported an all-time high. This ends up adding about 15% to the total number of Y&R viewers.

3. Sara Bibel says seven-day DVR plays of Y&R add almost 25% to Y&R's audience.

4. We don't know how many people are watching the many legal online streams of Y&R, but it must be a lot. Unknown numbers at cbs.com, hulu, fancast, msn tv, legal Youtube...unknown, BUT think of this: EVERY WEEK, on their home page, CBS lists Y&R as one of their "most popular" streamed shows (no other soaps)

I have been as noisy as the rest of us about the "decline of soaps" and "the end is near" and all that jazz. But it is easy to look at these broadcast Neilsen trends and think all is lost. But when you ADD IN the numbers from these different venues, you suddenly realize that it is not out of the question that Y&R reaches 8-10 million people a day.

8-10 MILLION (and that could be an underestimate, since I have no clue what the online numbers are...that 8-10 million number could come from just Soapnet + delayed DVR views)!

A DAY!

What it says (and I can't speak to the rest of the daytime lineup) is that Y&R is still pulling numbers that aren't so far off from its' glory days!

It also says that if the chief revenue model still relies on same-day ad rates on CBS broadcast...well, then we're all f*cked.

If almost half your viewers are watching your show in other ways....they need to count...and you need to get the revenues from those other venues.

For me, meanwhile, I'm retreating from the doom and gloom a bit. These combined Y&R numbers are AMAZING...and they rival some of primetime viewership. The future is HERE. The audience is still HERE. Let's catch up with the business model!

End of days?

Tom Casiello really has me thinking with a recent blog post, prompted by some recent scathing revelations by Victoria Rowell (in an interview with Daytime Confidential).

In it, he says, in part, "But here's what's interesting... after the strike, and the Days firings, and the "Real Greenlee" and Guiding-Light-Wants-to-Be-The-Hills, and the Bryce/McClain/Byrne firings, and the Nuke Ban, and the Higley/Scott/Corday debacle, and the Y&R Is-He-Or-Isn't-He-Still-EP mess, and then the Carolyn Hinsey firing... honestly I hear a scathing interview like Ms. Rowell's? And all I can do is shrug."

He goes on to say, "And I think a lot of people finally see that it's time to just come clean. To be upfront and honest and the hell with where it leaves them. Because there's a good possibility that everyone who even has a job now will be looking for a new career before the next decade is over....Cheerful, isn't it?...Actually, yes. It very well could be. If history has taught us anything, it's that eventually, you get that Renaissance. You get the Roaring Twenties, the Summer of Love, so to speak....Somewhere out there, there must be another William Bell - a man who can take all of these artists, all of these differences of opinion and creative disagreements, and channel them - funnel them into one driving force that can create the number one daytime drama for over two decades without compromising anyone's artistic integrity. I wish he or she would show up - we're long overdue."

Casiello concludes with this: "Because from what I've seen of this calendar year, I'm not so sure 2009 will be the saving grace we all want it to be. But they say it's always darkest before the dawn, and I truly wish that if the events of the last nine months have taught us anything, it's that if you push enough people down, they will eventually find each other, and rise up again."

So, I'm focused on this apocalyptic vision. Heck, I have shared it. I have (somewhat tongue in cheek) predicted (by similar linear interpolation of the falling ratings trends, across all soaps, and by the assumption that once ratings fall below 1.0 soaps are not viable) that the last soap (Y&R) will leave us in 2016.

At the same time, I don't think "the strike, and the Days firings, and the "Real Greenlee" and Guiding-Light-Wants-to-Be-The-Hills, and the Bryce/McClain/Byrne firings, and the Nuke Ban, and the Higley/Scott/Corday debacle, and the Y&R Is-He-Or-Isn't-He-Still-EP mess, and then the Carolyn Hinsey firing" or the Rowell interview are AT ALL symptomatic of the death of soaps.

Let me explain.

I think soaps are dying for myriad reasons that have relatively little to do with their creative state. These include (and have been mentioned many times before)
- women out of home
- lack of intergenerational viewing
- failure to move soaps to a time when people are home
- lack of off-network and out-of-daypart promotion
- general perception (from their beginnings, on radio) as soaps as uncool and for "ladies" with little better to do (the stimga phenomenon)
- growing cultural distaste (in all dayparts) for the commitment that serials require (look at the viewer attrition in Lost or ER)
- general decline of passive TV viewership in favor of video games, internet
- movement of TV viewership to downloaded torrents and youtube (which doesn't count in the ratings).

Many of these problems extend beyond daytime. Each of them (and others) contributes to the decline of soaps. I also think the magazines (revealing spoilers) kills soaps.

It is tempting to think that "the strike, and the Days firings, and the "Real Greenlee" and Guiding-Light-Wants-to-Be-The-Hills, and the Bryce/McClain/Byrne firings, and the Nuke Ban, and the Higley/Scott/Corday debacle, and the Y&R Is-He-Or-Isn't-He-Still-EP mess, and then the Carolyn Hinsey firing" represents some kind of Lord of the Flies...the abandoned islanders feeding off each other, driven to bloodlust.

But, honestly, I think the REAL issue in these events is "new media" and "the Perez Hilton effect" (these two are related). New media means that "news" is released INSTANTLY, unfiltered, around the protective walls of publicists. This sh*t ALWAYS happened...we just didn't know it because SOD/SOW etc. protected the industry.

Now, though, as the Hinsey Jossip thread shows, the stuff gets out there INSTANTLY. Under clever nom-de-plumes, SOD/SOW staffers allegedly got on the internet and told everyone what they were experiencing.

Think about it:

- Days firings. Many of us found out about that on a SUNDAY thanks to Toups at Soap Opera Network. In the old days, the magazines might not even have REPORTED this.

- Real Greenlee. Horrible, horrible, horrible. BUT...it was internet disgust--shared animus against that mean-spirited promotion...that made public rancor spread. I might have thought it was horrible...but it was only when an online community convinced me that I was not alone that my disgust grew...it wasn't just me

- Guiding Light. Well...that one doesn't have much to do directly with the internet. That is just bad :). (Sorry DonnaB...I know you love the show. But actually, I APPLAUD the experiment. Indeed, I think if the writing can become 'soapier' (something EP Ellen Wheeler apparently doesn't want) the new production model could work

- Bryce/McClain/Byrne firings...those would have been quickly forgotten "Comings and Goings" if internet communities hadn't brewed them into shared outrage. I say this EVEN THOUGH these were stellar veterans. It takes a community to create communal outrage.

- Nuke ban. Well, the no kissing was outrageous. BUT, let us not forget Roger Newcomb's campaign. He was masterful, with his colleagues, in exposing light on it via...the internet (and every print publication in the WORLD, it seemed). But I don't see how this one is a BAD thing. Fan outrage got us kisses. LOTS of them. I see no problems here.

- Higley/Scott. Internet. AGAIN, an internet venue (Canadian TV Guide) released the news on a Friday, with weekend updates. And ever message board in soapdom glowed red with outrage for a long weekend. The print media poo-poo'ed it.

- Hinsey firing. That is news ONLY on Jossip, and with the 2000 posters who went there.

My point is this: These events all seem more apocalyptic...but they really were only disseminated, promulgated, and reacted to in a narrow blogosphere. (Well blogosphere + message boards + a few online publications). To the broad "laiety" of soap viewership, they didn't even know it happened. To the passionate few hundred who haunt this soap-world, it was a big deal.

I am convinced this kind of chaos always happened (look at the headwriter parade at Another World)...but the "fan revolt" that surrounds it is localized to this weird internet community we are all in.

If I am right, then all this "chaos" is a chronic state (in most industries), and has few implications for the death of soaps.

The death of soaps, when it comes, will have to do with those plummeting numbers and that huge list of factors up above that nobody is attending to.