I posted this on SON board and Luke, I beg to differ your theory in why the ratings are down this year:

Here is why Daytime Emmys was higher last year which aired on CBS: the telecast began airing at 9pm not 8pm unlike ABC. CBS aired a primetime special of "The Price Is Right" at 8pm to lead into the Emmy telecast which is a brillant scheduling move unlike ABC which had nothing except for some Canadian reject soap about hockey players & bimbos airing after the Emmys. If Daytime Emmys were to be aired during the summer, you always air it later in the evening not at 8pm because people are outside enjoying the weather and it's still light out.

I remember in the early 90s when NBC aired the Daytime Emmys, they aired one of their soaps in a primetime edition of "Days of Our Lives" or "Another World" right before the Emmy telecast which was ultra-cool. So what did ABC network had to offer????? Nothing, and I mean NOTHING except for a premium digital cable channel called SoapNet which only less than 2.0 million household are subscribed in the entire country. SoapNet aired their "red-carpet" event for 2 hours before the Daytime Emmy telecast which does NOTHING for the ratings. I thought last year's red carpet host Chandra Wilson from Grey's Anatomy did wonders because she was a fan except we got RPG and RB from AMC who seemed amateurish to be hosting (no personal attack to RPG/RB intended). If I was Brian Frons to get someone to do red-carpet for daytime, I would get a well-known primetime star who loves soaps or a well-known comedian Drew Carey or Kathy Griffin.

The whole ABC Emmy telecast missed out on lack of Memoriam, too much of Cameron Mathison, bad set up in tables which is not working (trying to be like Golden Globes), lack of showing actors/actresses' nominated scenes, lack of premiere musician who could headline the Emmys, focusing on this "passing-around-the-digital-camera" was a bit cheesey, no Game Show or host categories, the fans were way in the back during the this year's event whereas last year they were in the front, and lack of soaps' nominated scenes.

Bottom line is, the Daytime Emmys telecast was used for three things only (Brian Frons knows this!): 1) promo for SoapNet cable channel; 2) promo for MVP, and 3) promo for GH: Night Shift 2; which you couldn't avoid during the entire 2-hour event. No wonder MVP stunk in the ratings because NOT EVERYONE WANTS SOAPNET OR CAN SUBSCRIBE, so if you ram SoapNet promo in people's throat they will utlimately tune out not because of CBS dominations in nominations. Duh!

In fairness.... it was on ABC, of course they are going to use the time and most likely free ad space to promote the SoapNet shows.  While I enjoyed the SoapNet promos, especially for Night Shift, the commercials don't tend to make me tune out.  With today's DVR, the FF button is a great thing. 

I agree, the 9 pm start time would have been better.

I liked the table set up, it was different and while different isn't always better, at least there was a little bit of a change. 

I thought the hosts were far more entertaining than what CBS gave us last year. 

IMO, the nomination process and it's flaws were on display this year.  I had no intention of watching the telecast at all until Danielle made me promise to come over and watch with her. 

As for the red carpet coverage... it was a mess this year.  They do need to take a cue from other red carpets.

It's a reflection of the industry's decline in ratings and attention. I live in a major Canadian city and the prime time Emmy Awards gets huge coverage in the major newspapers. Saturday? There was almost nothing about the the Daytime Emmys in the papers and even today, a brief nod to Jeanne Cooper and that was that.

Was this lack of attention just here? Cause, if this was representative of the press it received in other major cities, I'm surprised Daytime television is still alive.

I have a feeling the Emmys will stop being televised in the next few years like the Soap Opera Digest awards. They may replace it with live online feeds, but I think the days of network Daytime Emmy broadcasts are coming to an end.

If anyone is interested, the following site is great at providing more ratings share information and gives an hour-by-hour breakdown of the awards ratings:

http://pifeedback.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/555-5555/m/555-5555

-Friday’s Winners:
Nothing

-Friday’s Losers (excluding repeats):
The 35th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards (ABC), MVP: He Shoots, She Scores (ABC)

----------

-Ratings Breakdown:
Despite airing a night of all originals, ABC tanked on Friday, finishing third in total viewers and dead-last among key adults 18-49. First in overall viewership was CBS, with just slightly over 6-million, while there was a four-way tie for low-rated leadership among adults 18-49.

The 35th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards got very little mileage on ABC, with just 5.39 million viewers and a 1.2 rating/ 4 share among adults 18-49 from 8-10 p.m. Take a look at the half-hour breakdown:

The 35th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards (ABC)
8:00 p.m. Viewers: 5.45 million (#1), A18-49: 1.2/ 5 (#2t)
8:30 p.m. Viewers: 5.27 million (#2), A18-49: 1.1/ 4 (#4)
9:00 p.m. Viewers: 5.21 million (#2), A18-49: 1.1/ 4 (#3t)
9:30 p.m. Viewers: 5.62 million (#2), A18-49: 1.2/ 4 (#4t)

Comparably, this was a decrease of a hefty 3.03 million viewers and 40 percent among adults 18-49 from the year-ago Daytime Emmy Awards telecast on CBS on Friday, June 15, 2006. For a listing of Friday’s winners, see TV Tidbits below.

The 35th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards led into a scripted hour (translation: busted pilot) called MVP: He Shoots, She Scores at just 2.47 million viewers (#3) and a 0.6/ 2 among adults 18-49 (#5) at 10 p.m.

I think the ratings are a reflection of people just not being that interested anymore in the Daytime Emmy's.

no one really cares about that industry no more. and the numbers prove it.

they're dropping & will continue to drop.

sorry to say.

And I just read this about MVP:

"The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) ordered 10 episodes and aired them all earlier this year. They didn't do great in the ratings (even for Canada) and the show was canceled. SoapNet picked up those 10 episodes - and they'll order a second season if those episodes do well- and ABC gave it one night of promotion (06/20/08)."

Here are some good observations from a poster on MediaWeek:

Several possible explanations of the sharp decline of daytime Nielsen numbers.

1. Daytime viewers have migrated over to new channels (online viewing, Soapnet encores). Since we don't see numbers for online viewing (at abc.com, for instance), its hard to say if the migration to online equals the live viewing losses.

2. Daytime viewers are making higher-than-average use of DVRs to time-shift viewing. The only problem with this theory is that an hour a pop, daytime episodes of serials can quickly fill up a DVR unless they're watched on a diligent basis.

3. Daytime viewers are abandoning the serial drama format (like they earlier abandoned game shows and off-primetime scripted encores) for other daytime alternatives (court shows, talkies). If this is true, then I would have expected to see higher numbers coming from The View.

4. There are just not as many daytime viewers as there used to be due to higher workforce / school participation rates. Over the last 40+ years, the trend towards two-income families is so nearly complete that today I know only a handful A18-49's who would describe themselves as a home-maker, even for those families with a large gaggle of young brood. And the stay at home self-employed seem far too busy with their e-mails, Blackberries and Facebooks to have the concentration required to keep up with a good serial drama.
----------------------

I tend to agree. Awards shows are down all across the board. I, myself, am watching a LOT less television shows than I did before the strike. My viewing time is devoted to baseball during April to October, but I make room for my favorite scripted and non-scripted PRIMETIME shows. Unfortunately, since I work, all daytime shows (which is only General Hospital these days since Y&R became boring to me) gets put on Tivo and I watch it when there is nothing else that interests me.

I think the decline in viewers is like any other post strike situation. Like when baseball went on strike, it lost many many fans. The same can be said with television. Hopefully the actors can agree on a deal or we may have another strike which could cause further decline in overall viewership.

Allistair,

Someone thought that when the contract ends, that the Daytime Emmy's will be broadcast on SoapNet.

Has anyone else heard this?

Its a joke, lack of diversity is a huge turn of for the fans I hang out with and

the nomination procedure turned me off it is overtly lopsided, "wrong" and should have been re vamped years ago. They refuse to do it so I refuse to watch this farce.
I know groups of fans who refused to watch this nonsense. NOt saying they had impact on these numbers but I'm sure it didnt help

Although I believe the soap world would be better off w/out Frons and his henchmen being the worst thing to happen to this genre of storytelling. I can not for one minute belive that ABC does not have the talented actors just as these low ranking shows do.

Also the pimping of soapnnet, Disney movies, and Frons' poodles always turns me off. Its not subtle the appear all over soapnet.com and promos and also in the Emmy montage.

Eg was the Spin in the montage? Why did I see an actor on stage that hasn't even aired yet. I didn't watch it because of ignoring talented actors while the same ones win oer and over and yes I include Tony Geary unforutunately. He's good, when he's there.

Even though Frons & Co. pushes his pets down my throat; I for one am glad they got best drama not for Jr who is a horrible writer with his "slow drag" method of story-telling but for the "actors" who toil through his rubble to make lemonaide out of his lemons.

They deserve some kind of recognition (nominations) and since they don't get them from this enterprise this will do for me.

i watched the first 15-20 minutes of the show and after that i just turned it off. It was just more of the same.

nothing spectacular was going that deserved my attention and the same people were winning that won last year.

wasnt worth it.

I believe that it is the unfair voting system that is now is making the telecast ratings drop. I believe if the Emmy system was fair and equal and people who deserves to get nominate and not vote for friends, the ratings would still be a little higher than it is, but the I do believe the the tie in with something else would have done it. But I feel the awards should be on May instead of June and it is the industry that is losing ground and it is a shame.

siomonstuart2003

airing the awards in late June when its summer already and no one is at home?

who is the genius that made that decision??

Friday night!!!

There's nothing on during the week and they put it on a Friday night? I did DVR the show and watch it the next day, but where are the fashion wrap shows or recaps like the other award shows get. They should put more emphasis on the show if they want people to take notice. I love the idea of doing a primetime soap show that shows all the clips from the shows and actors. Plus, no promotion. Every network has something to gain by people getting interested in the Emmy's, but it's like their dirty little secret that no one wants to talk about. Thank God for The View or I wouldn't have known about it.

Personally there where a couple of things that turned me off:
1)The nominations were (for the most part) a joke, so I wasn't really interested in seeing who won.

2)The Red Carpet show and the actual award show aired two hours later for me than it did elsewhere. So knowing it wasn't really "live" made me less intersted. I was watching only on and off.

The ratings decline is so depressing. It's giving further credence to the idea that daytime soaps are a dying genre

Soaps are dying and therefore so are the Emmys that celebrate them. If a network wants higher ratings for their Emmy telecast it's going to invest in the soaps themselves. Enough of the same old people ruining every soap. Why do people who get fired from one soap get hired for another soap? Is there some unknown rule that only people who have written or produced a soap can only do it now? Soaps need NEW BLOOD or they will die. The poor ratings for the Emmy telecast is just a reflection of that.

There was one reason I didn't watch the Emmy's and one reason only...The nominations were ridiculous. I don't even watch the shows that got the most nominations. I'm a GH fan and they got like what, 3 noms? Enough said.

The best analysis so far are from RocketsGL and Christie Delancey on the Daytime Emmys ratings decline. My own feeble two cents are:

ABC/Frons cannot be blamed for not promoting the Daytime Emmys (or that wretched MVP for that matter). The promos for both were non-stop for the last two weeks, as any ABC soap viewer knows. Again, this goes back to the "Love Him/Hate Him Frons" debate: no matter what you think of Frons, he is really pulling for the SOAP INDUSTRY, even when a) his own soaps are practically shut out and b) he and ABC can still use the Daytime Emmys as a platform to promote the ABC soaps, MVP and Soapnet (which is perfectly fine; all the networks do it for their awards shows, too). ABC could have easily let the promotion slide and taken the hit, but they promoted that awards show as if the entire casts of their shows had been nominated, right down to craft services.

The complaint about the Emmys being broadcast on a Friday night are bogus. As far as I can remember, the Daytime Emmys have always been broadcast of a Friday night. The unusual thing about this particular Friday was that it was also one of the stronger movie nights in a long while with the premieres Get Smart and (groan) The Love Guru, as well as unusually strong holdovers from previous weeks. The biggest competition that television has on summer weekends is summer movies in theaters and this has been an stronger movie season than last year.

There is an additional point I have been trying to make here but folk are turning a deaf ear to, but it bears repeating because it is the truth: there is a large portion of this country that is/was UNDER FLOOD WATER or being threatened by them. It so happens that the largest part of the country affected by the floods is the Midwest, which happens to be the backbone of most soap viewership in this country. We're talking about large areas that are not simply flooded, but without power or even when there is power television reception is spotty or devoted to weather or flood related issues day and night. So these folks aren't watching the Daytime Emmys or anything else. (And as a side note, yes there are a number of cable series and even network series which have experienced good or record ratings for their outlets, but most of these are shows that usually play better in urban/metropolitan markets.) Bottom Line: there is bound to be a drop in viewership in soap (and Daytime Emmy) ratings when a nice chunk of the geographic demographic and their markets that support these shows are unable to actually watch them because they were under 9 feet of water.

Finally, as pointed out elsewhere, all awards shows have suffered big viewership declines. The Tony Awards, broadcast last Sunday night and one of the best in recent memory, barely competed against the NBA finals and the US Open coming up shorter than the year before despite a broadcast stuffed with well-known stars and performances.

I do think the decline in the Daytime Emmy ratings is a reflection of the downward trends across the entire soap genre and in network television in general. But it also my personal opinion is that there is still way too much carping by many about stuff like the ratings of soaps and, in this case, the Daytime Emmys as if the entire soap genre and its fans exist in a specific little bubble in which their world revolves around soaps and nothing else intrudes into that vacuum. If you don't live in a flood plain on a pleasant summer evening and the choice is between the Daytime Emmys and a night at the movies with your honey, most people are going to pick their honey. If you live in an area rocked by hurricanes, freak thunderstorms, or floods and the choice is between taking care of your home and kiddies or checking out Marcy Rylan's Mrs. Roper dress, take wild guess what gets priority. And, in an irony of almost epic proportions, in a recent Daytime Confidential podcast in which ratings were discussed and dissected the entire DC team on that pod fessed up that none of them watch any of their soaps during their original broadcast, instead watching on DVR or SoapNet.

My point continues to be that in judging the ratings of soaps and stuff like the Daytime Emmys, we need to take a far more comprehensive and holistic approach that looks at the larger picture of what is affecting the ratings of soaps and their awards shows.

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THE EDGE OF NIGHT: 2008 - Hi-Octane Version
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oA5DbWdX8IA

Great points DS9Sisko and loved your comment about Marcy wearing Mrs. Roper's dress. However, I thought she looked great in the dress and was my top 5 best dressed on Emmy night.

I can't take credit for Marcy looking like Mrs. Roper. That was all the inimitable Mr. Jamey Giddens on the podcast. (Welcome to Atlanta, Jamey! I need to take you out to lunch sometime!)

But Jeanne Cooper looked like Dorothy from Golden Girls. I think that dress gave my friend the flu and drowned Cedar Rapids! LOL

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THE EDGE OF NIGHT: 2008 - Hi-Octane Version
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oA5DbWdX8IA

Great post!

I didn't plan on watching because what....2 abc'ers where nominated and the rest I don't watch. But I tuned in anyways, thru my DVR. LOL I was disappointed that Charlie from OLTL didn't win, disappointed, but not suprised. Was thrilled that Tony from GH won for Luke....when he's there.....The rest I just ff thru.

What was with all those new (stupid) categories...it was ridiculous!! I could give less than a rats behind about some of the other categories they already have and then they add more senseless ones....LOL

well alot of abc soap fans (including myself) boycotted the daytime emmys this year b/c of a lack of abc actor/actresses nominations