Daily Soap Opera Ratings: Week of 11/12
Welcome to the Daily Soap Opera Ratings breakdown. Thanks to the folks at Soap Opera Network and their resources, I am able to do ratings rundown that I hope you all enjoy! You can check out the full ratings analysis, including total viewers and year-to-year comparisons for this week here. You can see last week’s breakdown of how the the four soaps performed each day of the week in the two key demographics here.
Also of note is this: while the public only gets a glimpse at the categories of total viewers, women 18-49 and women 25-54 this is only part of the picture. This information is based on Live+Same Day viewing data from Nielsen Media Research. Nielsen is the industry standard for audience membership- but over the years it has struggled to keep up with changing viewer habits.
How the Ratings Work…
Live+Same-Day numbers reflect only viewers who watch an episode of the soap live when it airs in the afternoon or via DVR recording before 3:00AM the night after its original airing. It doesn’t count the large part of the audience that watched on DVR after that, which is counted in a different set of data called Live+7 Day, which includes up to a week after it airs.
The numbers don’t include those who watch after that point, on Video on Demand through a cable carrier or on streaming services like Hulu, Peacock, or Paramount Plus. For a long time, the lack of measurement seemed to influence soap opera-related decisions negatively, but that is changing.
‘DAYS’ Proves Ratings are Only Part of the Picture
For example, DAYS has been the lowest-rated soap opera by every measure for years. In the past four years, the show went from constant fear of cancellation- even to the point where NBC canceled the cast’s contracts to force them to take pay in 2019.
In 2020, NBC’s parent company Comcast launched its streaming service and placed DAYS on the service. And since then, ratings dropped precipitously- even when it was the only soap on. The ratings hit some of the lowest ever in April, and NBC announced a two-year renewal of the series.
The ratings continued to fall even lower. NBC announced just before the soap returned after a two-week break post-Olympics that it ordered a 5-part limited run spin off of DAYS that would air Exclusively On Peacock. The week after the event, NBC released a promo announcing the revisiting of the infamous demonic possession of Marlena on the series. Since then, the storyline hasn’t yielded any of the ratings or buzz expected.
How has NBC responded? They’ve ordered a DAYS holiday movie- the first of its kind. What does NBC know that we don’t? The only logical conclusion is this: DAYS is killing it via streaming. So when you I analyze the ratings and come down on DAYS or any soap for dropping- its only a small part of the growing picture of how viewers watch the soaps.
GH Tops B&B in Women 25-54, Beats Y&R for #1 on Thursday
Women 18-49
General Hospital had quite a week. While not its highest rated or even a season high in any of the three categories, GH had some notable achievements this week that were definitely not common. In women 18-49, GH managed to rank second ahead of B&B on Monday, Thursday and Wednesday.
The ABC soap might have beaten B&B had its victories on Tuesday and Friday not been so decisive. Tuesday was especially good for B&B and bad for GH. On that day GH dropped to a .26, just .02 ahead of DAYS– a decline of 21 percent from the day before and its lowest rated for the week. It ranked 16 out of 20 for the week.
B&B on the other hand had its best performance in the demographic on Tuesday, with a .39 which was just .01 behind Y&R , was the third highest for all soaps this week and beat GH by 50 percent. Friday was a little better for GH, where it pulled in a .31, but B&B still surpassed it by a large margin with a .35 rating. Friday was also B&B’s second highest rated in women 18-49.
Women 18-49
Monday 11/8
1. Y&R 0.37 2. GH 0.33 3. B&B 0.32 4. DAYS 0.24 Tuesday 11/9
1. Y&R 0.4 2. B&B 0.39 3. GH 0.26 4. DAYS 0.24 Wednesday 11/10
1. Y&R 0.36 2. GH 0.31 3. B&B 0.3 4. DAYS 0.25 Thursday 11/11
1. GH 0.36 2. Y&R 0.35 3. B&B 0.33 4. Days 0.24 Friday 11/12
1. Y&R 0.43 2. B&B 0.36 3. GH 0.31 4. DAYS 0.27 Women 25-54
In women 25-54, things were a completely different story. GH beat B&B every day of the week but Tuesday. B&B had a .57 to GH’s .46 on that day, which is a solid margin of victory, but the 24% lead in women 25-54 was half of the lead it had in women 18-49 on the same day. GH made up for it elsewhere, taking second place on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
The real news came on Thursday where GH ranked first ahead of Y&R and B&B was knocked down to third. This wasn’t due to a weaker CBS performance, as Y&R averaged a .63 that day and B&B pulled in a .56, both would have been more than enough to rank first and second any other day of the week. GH had a .65 rating that day, the second highest rated episode of any soap for the week.
Women 25-54
Monday 11/8
1. Y&R .64. 2. GH .55 3. B&B .52 4. DAYS .37 Tuesday 11/9
1. Y&R .63 2. B&B .57 3. GH .46 4. DAYS .33 Wednesday 11/10
1. Y&R .62 2. GH .54 3. B&B .51 4. DAYS .36 Thursday 11/11
1. GH .65 2. Y&R .63 3. B&B .56 4. DAYS .39 Friday 11/12
1. Y&R .67 2. GH .56 3. B&B .54 4. DAYS .37
Every Episode of Every Soap Opera Ranked: Week of 11/12/21
- Every single episode of Y&R ranked in the top 10 this week and the soap once again held the top position in both demographics. In women 18-49, the CBS soap held 4 of the top 5 episodes and number 8. In women 25-54, Y&R held number 1 and spots 3 through 6.
- In 18-49, three of the week’s episodes of B&B made the top 10. B&B had the number 3 spot, tied for 5th with GH and Y&R and tied for 9th place with GH. Outside the top 10 held number 11 and number 14. In women 25-54, B&B ranked 7th, 8th, tied with GH for 11th, and held the next two spots at number 13 and 14.
- In women 18-49, GH made tied for number 5 with Y&R and number 9 (Tied with B&B). Two episodes of GH tied for 12th and the lowest rated episode ranked 16th. In the older demographic, GH held the number 2 spot, tied for number 8 with B&B, tied for number 11 with
| # | Series /(M-F) | Women 18-49 |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Y&R (F) | 0.43 |
| 2. | Y&R (T) | 0.4 |
| 3. | B&B (T) | 0.39 |
| 4. | Y&R (M) | 0.37 |
| 5.* | Y&R (W) | 0.36 |
| 5.* | GH (Th) | 0.36 |
| 5.* | B&B (F) | 0.36 |
| 8. | Y&R (Th) | 0.35 |
| 9.* | GH (M) | 0.33 |
| 9.* | B&B (Th) | 0.33 |
| 11. | B&B (M) | 0.32 |
| 12.* | GH (F) | 0.31 |
| 12.* | GH (W) | 0.31 |
| 14. | B&B (W) | 0.3 |
| 15. | DAYS (F) | 0.27 |
| 16. | GH (T) | 0.26 |
| 17. | DAYS (W) | 0.25 |
| 18.* | DAYS (Th) | 0.24 |
| 18.* | DAYS (M) | 0.24 |
| 18.* | DAYS (T) | 0.24 |
| # | Series /(M-F) | Women 25-54 |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Y&R (F) | 0.67 |
| 2. | GH (Th) | 0.65 |
| 3. | Y&R (M) | 0.64 |
| 4.* | Y&R (T) | 0.63 |
| 4.* | Y&R (Th) | 0.63 |
| 6. | Y&R (W) | 0.62 |
| 7. | B&B (T) | 0.57 |
| 8.* | GH (F) | 0.56 |
| 8.* | B&B (Th) | 0.56 |
| 10. | GH (M) | 0.55 |
| 11.* | GH (W) | 0.54 |
| 11.* | B&B (F) | 0.54 |
| 13. | B&B (M) | 0.52 |
| 14. | B&B (W) | 0.51 |
| 15. | GH (T) | 0.46 |
| 16. | DAYS (Th) | 0.39 |
| 17.* | DAYS (M) | 0.37 |
| 17.* | DAYS (F) | 0.37 |
| 19. | DAYS (W) | 0.36 |
| 20. | DAYS (T) | 0.33 |
