ALTHOUGH ALL SOAP OPERAS DROPPED WEEK-TO-WEEK, THERE’S (SOME) POSITIVE NEWS
Welcome to the latest look at the ratings for the four remaining daytime soap operas. Special thanks to our friends at Soap Opera Network for providing the ratings data for our analysis. Recently celebrating twenty years as one of the top soap opera news sources, Soap Opera Network is awesome, so check it out!
| Week of 11/1-11/5/21 | Young & The Restless | Bold & The Beautiful | General Hospital | Days Of Our Lives |
| Total Viewers (in millions) | 3.414 | 2.839 | 2.138 | 1.586 |
| % Last Week | -3% | -4% | -4% | -5% |
| % Last Year | 8% | 6% | 5% | -10% |
| Season-to-Date | 3.547 | 2.92 | 2.23 | 1.62 |
| Season-to-Date Live+7 | 3.81 | 3.11 | 2.53 | 1.78 |
This week, while all four soaps lost viewers, there was good news to be had by (almost) all the soap operas. CBS held up well compared to last year, and was up in demos. ABC’s GH hit a season low but is tops in live plus seven-day viewers. Days of Our Lives… well… at least there’s Peacock? Right?
Young & The Restless held number one for total viewers with 3.414 million viewers. The CBS soap opera has held number one in total viewers for every single week since 1988- except for one. Unfortunately, the series declined by 113,000 viewers from last week to hit its lowest audience in 9 weeks. Y&R was up 288,000 viewers from last year, the most of any daytime drama. Y&R did, however, tie its season-high in women 25-54.
Check out the demographic rating report here for more on how well Y&R performed every day of the week. Here’s a look at the last two weeks of Daily Soap Opera Ratings. Season to Date, Y&R has averaged 3.547 million viewers thus far this season. Including the latest available live plus seven-day ratings in the average, Y&R is averaging 3.81 million viewers.
B&B Rises in Demo Ratings, Despite Audience Dip
Fellow CBS soap opera Bold & The Beautiful also hit a season-low for the most significant loss of any soap opera this week. Losing 133,000 viewers week-to-week, this was B&B’s smallest audience since July. But up against the show’s weak performance after the pandemic shutdown, this week’s total-viewer average was 2.839 million, enough to beat the comparable week last year by 157,000 viewers.
B&B hit its second-highest ratings for the season in both demographics- take a look at the daily ratings for each soap here. You can see how B&B performed each day of the last two weeks here.
So far this season, the half-hour soap opera is averaging 2.92 million viewers, up from 2.764 million the same time last year. When the most recent live plus seven-day ratings are added, B&B’s average increases to roughly 3.11 million viewers.
GH Down, But Only Soap Opera Up From Past Two Seasons
Over at General Hospital, the longest-running soap opera on television dipped to a season-low as well, dropping by 4 percent. A total of 95,000 might have tuned out but with 2.136 million viewers tuning in the soap opera beat last year’s performance. GH had 11,000 more viewers than last year.
In the demographics, GH dropped in both categories. You can out the latest daily ratings report for General Hospital and all the soaps later this week. The last two weeks of GH’s demographic ratings for every day of the week are posted here.
Through this point in the season, ABC soap is averaging 2.23 million viewers, which is better than the first seven weeks of the season last year when it averaged 1.977 million AND better than the year before when it averaged 2.11 millon. Even when compared to 2018 when it averaged 2.33 million viewers, the soap is down a satistically insignificant 10,000 viewers.
When live plus seven-day numbers are included, GH is averaging 2.53million viewers for the season. With both a more significant percentage of its audience watching after it has aired live, General Hospital gains more viewers when live plus seven-day viewers are counted.
Despite the drop in the latest ratings, GH was among the top 10 trending television series on Hulu multiple times the last couple weeks. And while they say no publicity is bad publicity: let’s see how the recent controversy on the soap that has dominated headlines effects its ratings.
No-Halloween Bump for ‘DAYS’
Considering that the show played up its spooky stories with a well timed Halloween-focused plot one might have expected numbers to rise this week for Days of Our Lives. Even with Marlena still under the influence of Satan and now raising the dead to menace the residents of Salem, DAYS still lost viewers.
On the bright side, the NBC soap dropped the least amount among the soaps.
With 87,000 viewers tuning out, DAYS averaged 1.586 million viewers for the second smallest audience this season. Season-to-date, 1.62 million viewers are watching Live Plus Same Day. When viewers watching after the aired through the seven days that follow, DAYS is averaging 1.78 million viewers. This a smaller percentage increase than its peers and down from past years.
DAYS also dropped to lows in both demographic. You can see demographic rating for every day of the last two weeks here. Check out the daily ratings for this week up now. DAYS has seen its numbers decline since the launch of the soap opera on NBC’s streaming service, Peacock in the spring/summer of 2020. It is reportedly performing well on the service, but no viewing figures have been made public.