Soap Opera Ratings For the Week of September 5-9, 2022
A look at how all four daytime soap operas performed among total viewers.
Like sand through the hour glass, this was the final week of Days Of Our Lives on NBC. While the beloved series moved on to streaming service Peacock, replacing its only soap marked the end of an era on NBC and network television in general.
The great news for NBC fans is that they will never have to worry about any news interruptions of DAYS now that its on Peacock. Unfortunately, the soap was still interrupted for viewers watching the traditional way due to the death of Queen Elizabeth. All four soaps were preempted by the news coverage on Thursday and once again for part of Friday.
The Final ‘DAYS’ of soaps on NBC were hampered by the death of the Queen.
Despite the unceremonious interruption from the death of a monarch, DAYS attracted biggest audience in nearly three months as 1.679 million watching its final week on NBC. This marked an uptick of six percent from the previous week, with an additional 93,000 viewers tuning in.
Compared to the same week last year, DAYS was up by 20,000 viewers. The NBC soap’s final week even outperformed its final season average by 1,000 viewers.
All things considered, DAYS held up pretty well during the its final season on network television. With 1.678 million viewers, the soap was only down by 19,000 viewers from the 1.697 million viewers who tuned in on average last year.
Y&R was up week-to-week, but down from last year
Young and The Restless joined DAYS as the only soap to add viewers week-to-week, adding 40,000 viewers for a 3.242 million average. The good news stopped there, as Y&R was down 170,000 viewers from last year’s 3.412 million.
While the CBS soap continues it 34-year reign as the most watched daytime drama, Y&R has seen a worrying trend this summer. This season the soap is averaging 3.443 million viewers, a big jump from the 3.263 million who watched last year. Unfortunately, Y&R has only performed at/or above its season-average twice since June.
Just looking at the past month alone, Y&R has hit season lows multiple times. Just two weeks ago, the CBS soap even dropped to just 3.08 million viewers- one of the lowest rated in the show’s history.
The only time Y&R performed worse was after a three-month hiatus due to the industry-wide shutdowns during the pandemic. However, many viewers were unaware the show had returned, an issue that both B&B and GH faced as well.
Since then Y&R regained much of its lost audience, hitting 3.672 million as recently as April of this year. Both Y&R have been renewed by CBS through 2024, but as with DAYS, anything could happen.
B&B had its smallest audience since January 2021
Bold and The Beautiful had a pretty rough week with 2.735 million viewers tuning, marking the soap’s smallest audience in 20-months. The half-hour CBS soap lost 100,000 viewers from the previous week. Even more alarming, B&B lost 224,000 viewers, down roughly 8 percent, from the same week last year.
The loss of viewers this week has been part of a recent reversal of fortune for B&B. The soap saw its numbers during its 35th season consistently outpace last year. However, B&B really saw its numbers improve in late March, just after it officially hit the 35-year mark.
With some well-promoted plot twists revolving around villainous Sheila Carter, including more than a few shocking deaths (that turned out to be fake-outs), B&B hit multi-year highs during successive weeks during the spring.
While the momentum seem to dry up by late July, the CBS soap is still outpacing last year’s average. B&B has pulled in 2.956 million viewers so far this season, up 127,000 viewers from the final average during the 2020-2021 season.
General Hospital was steady, losing just 1,000 viewers
General Hospital aired a brand new episode on Labor Day instead of an encore for the first in nearly two-decades. The move didn’t jolt the soap’s numbers, but it didn’t hurt it. GH pulled in 2.05 million viewers, nearly identical to the 2.051 million viewers who tuned in the previous week.
The ABC soap was up from last year’s performance, which ranked as one of the least watched of the 2020-2021 season with just 1.951 million viewers tuning in. The increase is likely due to the network learning from a previous mistake. Last year, ABC failed to alert Nielsen to its decision to air an encore episode on the Monday of that week, so the low-rated episode brought down GH’s average.
With just one week left to go in the season, GH is outpacing last year’s 2.12 million viewer average by two percent, drawing 2.165 million this time around. Not only was the ABC soap up from last year, it has nearly matched the 2.17 million viewer average from the year before. Of all four soaps, GH has lost the least amount of viewers over the past three seasons.
I hope you enjoyed this ratings report. As always, thanks for visiting my site. Leave a comment below or hit me up on social media.
Remember to check out DAYS on the streaming service Peacock. Take advantage of Peacock’s special discount on an annual subscription!
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Special thanks to my friends at Soap Opera Network for the raw ratings data.