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To piggyback on this: I assume that all of the posters here are men, just as I am. Y'all/We aren't even in the main demographic age-wise or gender-wise for The Young and the Restless or The Talk, and most of you probably don't watch either show. I don't watch either, either. So, to say that Y&R and/or The Talk should be cut in half or altogether canceled outright is short-sighted and silly. Especially as both shows still make money for the network even if viewership levels aren't what they were at each show's peak. With that said, I will be surprised if this proposed soap makes it beyond the developmental stage, let alone to CBS. And if it does, it's a prime candidate for streaming. (I was going to say BET, but who knows if it'll be owned by Paramount Global a year from now.)

For starers, you're talking a substantial decline in total eyeballs who cared to watch anyone cover what is a meaningless snooze fest at this point. 19 mill to 11.4....that's like a 40% drop. Great for bargain hunting, not so great for viewership. So who tunes in to foregone conclusion coverage? The die hards looking for their fix. Not surprisingly, that benefits Fox News and MSNBC. I was curious enough in 2020 where there were still contests to watch some coverage. This year, I'd have rather watched paint dry. There was nothing up in the air--we know the top of the tickets, and to the extent there were locally contested races, those are better covered...locally.

I can imagine The Daytime Emmys in 2026 with cast members of The Gates being nominated for Daytime Emmys

Fair point, but I think the concerns about the state of both shows cross gender lines. As a male who loves soaps and grew up in a household filled with women who watched soaps, I know plenty of women be it on social media or in person who have complained about the quality of both shows, and would not be sad to see The Talk get cut or drastic measures made to improve Y&R/B&B.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in WBDland.... Warner Bros. Discovery to Overhaul TruTV With Sports; Sets Nightly Block for Games and More TruTV isn't the only "zombie" WBD needs to deal with...

I think the sports block is the best plan for TruTV since the peak of its format as a comedy-based reality show network. I think it'll be hugely successful and I'd bet a rebrand will be imminent sometime after.

Totally fair. I was even going to write "not to sound echo chamberish..." but I didn't lol.

That's certainly possible. I think this is a very good thing for truTV. It makes the network worth watching, instead of it being just the network of Impractical Jokers reruns (and new episodes once a week, and those are moving to TBS in April).

Sorry to see Molly Grantham abruptly depart WBTV, as she was apparently forced out the door after she declined to renew her contract which expires at the end of the month. Rather than allowing her honorably finish 20 years of service, she was abruptly kicked to the curb wih no appropriate farewell or final broadcast. I would speculate Gray TV offered her an unsatisfactory contract, but whatever the case it is a shame to see her treated so disrespectfully. I hope to see her join WSOC or some other station if she so chooses and a contract is offered. WBTV continues to lose longtime legacy talent, incuding Paul Cameron, Maureen O'Boyle, Eric Thomas, Steve Ohnesorge, David Whisnant, and Steve Crump. Losing heritage credentials and class act reputation. More inclined to watch WSOC.

May 2022 in the dutiful trade press: 'Daria' Spinoff 'Jodie' Now an Animated Film, Sets Main Cast I mean, that sounds promising. A cas is set, with a big name attached. Connected to an established IP (older, but still recognizable to the target audence). Cool, must be coming soon. March 2024: Yeah, about that....never mind. Keep the grains of salt handy when it comes to something in development. And they choose (well, CBS chooses, but you get the idea) to keep Let's Make a Deal at 10 am and run the Feud repeats (alongside the approximately 19 hours that run over on Philly 57). That hour and the local avails in it are valuable. Heck, they didn't even move Drew Barrymore there to give it a full hour. Everything gets replaced someday. And Feud makes a convenient filler, since every single episode is basically Steve Harvey mugging at the camera when someone gives a euphamism for a body part or s*x act. But....giving it up entirely for a network show? Someone who wins a power struggle inside CBS might get the O&Os to go along if they blackmail the head of the station group into agreeing. But it's a really bad bet that you're getting an hour back from any affiliate group, and not terribly likely your own group is going along with it.

Thompson has acknowledged that most people (when it comes to politics) have gravitated towards channels that align with their political beliefs (i.e.. FNC or MSNBC) and aren't interested in getting a 'nonpartisan' viewpoint from CNN.

KGO was down with gremlins taking over the station all morning simulcasting KABC until 6:45 this morning. Im suprised with an outage like that, they couldn’t even get anything running not even a newsroom cam.

Would affiliates give up time? No. Not a snowball's chance in h....well, we know where. Not going to happen. Cutting back Y&R, or the Talk, is likewise not reality. They stay or they go, but they're not being trimmed. The problems with the idea of only a few days a week in some kind of checkerboard include the obvious inconsistency. Daytime is built on the same thing daily, and people are not going to be bothered with "is it Wednesday or is it Thursday that the Bold and the Beautiful is on." Or this embryonic idea of a new show. DVRs and on-demand options help, but delayed viewing is generally supplemental to "live." It doesn't replace it. You're also going to get the ad revenue only for however many number of days you put it on attributable to that show. If you're willing to find a cast that can actually act (OK, it's a soap, so it's more like chew scenery) who wants to get paid the commensurately less money while still being tied down...well, that isn't easy. And you still need to factor in the costs of the studio and sets, costumes, etc. It doesn't matter if you only use the set 2x a week, it's not any cheaper to build. The notion of running something only a couple of times and not being out of a cost crunch isn't a business reality. In theory you have two shows with less network revenue coming in but still occupying space and dealing with fixed costs. Sometimes convention is convention for valid economic reasons. If this idea ever comes to fruition, and many things reported as "in development" die "in development," it only works to replace an existing show. It doesn't work replacing Let's Make a Deal for both economic and practical reasons. Deal is no Price but it does well enough and it's a unique flex player on the schedule, airing in morning or afternoon. Mornings don't work for soaps (see Guiding Light, Santa Barbara). And getting affiliates who take Deal in the morning to give you their afternoon hour back in exchange for the morning slot is a hell of a hard sell. Heck, their own O&Os wouldn't exactly be thrilled with that...um....deal. Price is Right is going nowhere anytime soon. Y&R got its renewal, though it may well take years if this thing even progresses, so that isn't off the table. B&B has a year left on its deal; maybe it gets renewed, maybe they evaluate where development of this idea has gone before pulling the trigger on another extension. That's your most likely slot. The Talk is by no means The View, and you don't have the Chen/Moonves dynamic, but the show has carved out its own space and delivered decent numbers in an ad-friendly demographic. It would be the second option, should this concept be an hour-long one. Or it ends up being put on Paramount Plus. Or it gets shuffled off to BET. Or it morphs into a different form. Or like the rest of the developments from this arrangement, it lingers in purgatory and people forget it ever hit the trades for a day.

I wouldn't be surprised if WFLD/WPWR makes a play for this (rather than WCIU). They're looking to add/launch new content (particularly sports-related content) and GMFB would be a perfect fit.

Love this idea but if daytime television's target audience is women, how many will support this show?

It’s an interesting concept. How it works out, or doesn’t, will be dissected six ways from Sunday.

Y&R definitely needs to be cut to a half hour. "The Talk" can go or be trimmed. It isn't good anymore but at least it's not another newscast. If this show doesn't affect any existing program, would affiliates accept another network hour? What's even more surprising is that Proctor & Gambel — who famously pulled the plug on Another World because of money — is in on the talks. If money is a concern--Is five days weekly too expensive in this era? Pardon me for breaking convention but I'd cut B&B to Mon-Wed and put Propposed Soap on Thu-Fri. Keeps both budgets smaller with fewer scripts to write, and less filler cast needed. B&B struggles as is to write a week of dialogue without heavy repetition. Their episodes are literally copy and paste.

I broke off all the CBS talk into its own thread. There wasn't a clean break, so there may still be some of that here from late last year, but the soap and CBS talk continues here... https://forums.tvnewstalk.net/topic/20889-the-future-of-cbs-daytime/

Pay raises shouldn't be the only part of an answer. Extra pay is always nice. But there needs to be a larger more complex answer, and one person shouldn't make the decision. Station groups need to add to newsroom staff. But again, that's not sole answer. I think the two bits I mentioned above are small pieces to the overall answers. Many newsroom staff members feel like the entire shift rides on them. It's a feeling that is very overwhelming and quickly draining.

I've split this discussion off from the NBC News Daily thread, as it veered way off course to the CBS discussion.

If it cuts The Talk down to a half-hour it's already succeeded; whatever that show was before, it now seems to be gliding by on its past glory, anti-GH viewers simply there out of spite, or sponcon.

Should it happen, It would be best for that program to be kept to 30 minutes given the budgetary constraints of the medium.

So instead of using it as a learning opportunity for everyone in the newsroom, let’s fire/cancel the guy? I fail to see how that helps anyone. It’s far more productive to heed the lesson from this experience so that people avoid repeating similar mistakes in the future. Not to mention, this cluster f goes beyond one person. If I’m not mistaken, scripts are supposed to be written, edited, and reviewed before going to air. Something went seriously wrong with that process if no one caught that phrasing before hitting air, and work should be done to correct that process. Unless this was done with malicious intent (which by all accounts, it wasn’t), they don’t need to go on a pink slip crusade.

Boy, it's been a long time since we had someone start a good old fashioned list thread.

As an elder millennial who spent more than a decade in the business, burned out, and quit without a plan, solving this problem is a complex puzzle—and to be quite honest, I don't think there is a simple fix if there is one at all. Some key points from my experience... 1. The business expects people to treat it as a lifestyle, not a job. People coming out of college recently have (SMARTLY!) refused to accept this, which leads to potential broadcast journalists not entering the field. And those who do enter still have their priorities in the correct place of needing balance. Just as an anecdote, in late 2016, when it appeared the minimum salary to be exempt (salaried) under Fair Labor Standards Act regulations was going to go up, producers where I worked at the time were switched from salary to hourly pay. They were upset they would get overtime pay for working over 40 hours a week instead of getting a comp day for an extra day or double shift. 2. The quality of life is crap, and the have/have not with desirable schedules is ugly in a 24/7 business. People would weaponize incompetence themselves into roles where they had maximum supervision but desirable schedules rather than advance into roles where they could be trusted with less management intervention. Drive and ambition lead to a lower quality of life, and if you say "yes" too much to management's requests to work a shift that isn't normal for you or an extra day - you'll get guilted if you stand up for yourself when you need to prioritize your life over work. Refuse to help, and you'll get left alone. 3. Every role in the newsroom is doing more with less, and every added platform needs your full attention and dedication - even if it is of minimal value to the operation. Does TikTok generate revenue? No. But it still matters for some reason. 4. The industry is delusional about its prestige and standing in 2024. Companies are still convinced there are 1994 levels of job applicants and still try to sign employees to employment agreements with MASSIVE financial penalties should they resign or quit—even if they leave the industry. Those tactics drive people away before they even start. 5. There's no delicate way to say this, but the only way to survive in TV news as you start your career - is to have financial support. Even as companies have pushed minimum salaries higher - they still aren't matching the escalating cost of living. This leads to newsrooms full of people from privileged backgrounds who don't understand what matters to the audience members living paycheck to paycheck. An anchor once told me the only place they got recognized was at Walmart or K-Mart, and smartly reminded our team we must keep that in mind as we decide what we will cover. 6. COVID-19 opened a lot of eyes and accelerated the brain drain. The people who got to work from home realized a higher quality of life was possible and were inspired to find their next career because of it. Many people who were forced to come into the station or work in the field during lockdowns felt like bosses considered their health and safety less important than the people who got to stay home. They got (very understandably) frustrated and left. The list could go on and on... But those are the big factors in my mind.

CNN only averaged 900,000 viewers in primetime for Super Tuesday, with 938,000 in the marquee 10pm ET hour. Comparing the numbers to all the other channels including broadcast networks, how could CNN, once seen as the election go-to network, end up in the last place, not even passing one million viewers?? https://deadline.com/2024/03/super-tuesday-ratings-fox-news-cnn-msnbc-1235847745/

If that’s the case either The Talk is cut to a half hour, Y&R is cut to a half hour, or Y&R and B&B each move a half hour later and 12:30 returned to affiliates and the Talk cancelled.

I graduated high school in 1988. And I’m freaking old as dirt. What I did back them matters not a bit, nor does the fact that back then it was a big fish in a bigger pond. Sorry, it’s 2024, and being “number one” among three surviving and limping contenders is hardly trophy worthy. CBS could plop a polka music show on its schedule a guaranteed it will be number one in the category of broadcast polka music shows. Im looking at what matters: sellable audience eyeballs. If CBS can make enough bucks to wring some more life out of an ancient cast and recycled plots, props to them. But can we acknowledge that model is much closer to its end than its beginning? The world moves on, and no advertiser or media buyer is looking at what happened in the Regan administration era to place ad buys today.