Daytime Ratings: Young & Restless‘ Viewership Nosedives Upon Return as All 4 Soaps Hit Series Lows
It seems absence did not make the hearts of Young and the Restless fans grow fonder.
After airing repeats for three-plus months due to the coronavirus shutdown, Y&R returned with original episodes the week of Aug. 10. However, a sizable chunk of the show’s audience was not there to greet it.
As first reported by Daytime Confidential, Y&R averaged a series low 2.7 million viewers for its first full week back with new episodes — down more than 1 million viewers vs. the CBS sudser’s last full week of original episodes in late April.
Y&R‘s sister soap, The Bold and the Beautiful, — which returned with fresh episodes in mid-July — also sank to a series low for the week of Aug. 10, averaging 2.4 million viewers (down from 3.3 million when it left the air in April).
ABC’s General Hospital has taken less of a hit since coming back on the air earlier this month. Its most recent tally of 1.9 million viewers (also a series low) was down from 2.1 million for its last full week of new episodes in May.
Meanwhile, NBC’s Days of Our Lives — which shoots eight months in advance and therefore never ran out of fresh material — has not been spared either: Its total viewer tally dipped to a series low 1.6 million viewers for the week of Aug. 10.
As TVLine reported back in March, all four soaps initially saw their ratings surge as the majority country began quarantining at home.
Is this including dvr playback?
i believe these are the live numbers
Maybe the stations should stop being so political.. who needs them. They forgot half the country voted Republican….advertisers will notice a drop in they’re sales…
We have a voice to…
Now who’s making it political? Yes you do have a voice republican or otherwise. But nobody wants to hear it on their favorite soap no place for it.
Too. You have a voice too. And it’s “their” sales, although I have no idea what sales you mean. Quit abusing ellipses.
Soaps are an escape, and are neutral politically.
Thank you, Grif.
Or they should be. Days story about Jack running for mayor was so cringeworthy. I don’t want to watch that debate play out onscreen. Soaps are supposed to be an escape from that stuff.
Neutral politically? Hardly, watch 9/9/20’s episode. Where they drag in BLM to the show. This full on Marxist organization has nothing to do with actual black lives. They collected about 300 Million dollars in donations, and climbing, and use that money for the good of their movement which is inspiring a Maoist revolution.
“They forgot half the country voted Republican”
A shame so many people are so painfully stupid that they’d vote Republican. Or would think that politics has anything to do with a soap opera…..
It doesn’t help that I can get more excitement from watching paint dry than I can watching Y&R. If any of the four soaps could’ve benefited from resolving their current storylines off-screen and doing a time skip (however many months it was off air) and jumping into something fresh and interesting, it’s Y&R.
I agree. Y&R is a shell of its formal self. Adam killed someone as a child? Who cares and how many times are they going to dip into the “Dina has a secret well?” This is the third time for that ISH. I cannot believe they are doing Phyllis and Nick again. It’s absurd. The initial lightning in a bottle has long since fizzled out. Move on.
It’s still not as bad as Bold.
I LOVE PHYLLIS & NICK!!! THEY SHOULD HAVE NEVER BROKE UP!!! SOAP ALWAYS HAVE A BLAND SPOT FOR A SEC BUT THEN THEY SHAKE YPU UP & GET YOU ALL TWITER PATED IN SOME NEW SCENE…. WE’VE ALL BEEN OUT SI CALM DOWN & LET’S GIVE SOME POSITIVE VIBES TO OUR SHOWS THAT HAVE BEEN HERE FOR US AT TIME’S WHEN WE NEEDED THEM MORE THAN THEY NEEDED US. NIBODY CAN BE PERFECT ALL THE TIME!
I so agree. Bye bye phylis and nick
I am one of the lucky people who have been working from home during Covid and enjoyed taking a break to watch some classic y&r because it brought back a much simpler time of my life and it was just fun. I hadn’t watched new episodes in over 10 years tho. I find soaps completely out of touch with reality (something I didn’t mind when I was a kid)
Agree. I loved watching the old shows. There was much better story telling back then.
Yep. I missed the death of David kimble when I was a kid and watching how that played out 30 years later was such a delight.
I watch GH on Hulu at night. I hope that is somehow factored in. Want to keep these on the air.
I think broadcast is going to take a huge hit from COVID. All this time with nothing to watch on TV had made everyone more reliant than ever on streaming services. I think it’ll be similar to the hits shows took after the writers’ strike. When shows like This Is Us and Grey’s Anatomy return in the fall, I think we’ll be seeing new lows across the board.
Days of our Lives has been so horrible lately. Between cast members being released from contracts and then brought back, all the dead characters being brought back from the dead, and especially the torture scenes this past couple of weeks, it is no wonder ratings are down.
Y and rs first week episodes were boring same old sick of Abby and Phyliss and Billy and Lily.2nd week was better
They never should have let Phyllis take the hotel from Abby and Chelsea. Phyllis has her chance but as usual she put scheming and backstabbing Adam more of a priority. If there ever was someone that I don’t get it’s Phyllis. She could be Victor’s daughter enough is never enough for her.She has to have all the men, all the businesses, and all the attention. It’s boring she needs a guy a challenge and not Nick he’s whipped. Then again Nick’s been whipped by every one he’s been with on the show. Phyllis needs a guy to turn her inside out in the bedroom and fall for him. She won’t have time to make everybody around her lives miserable.Adam doesn’t want to remember killing that guy because then Victor/Nick/Victoria/Nicki will have something over him to keep him in check.A reminder that you mess with us any of us and your secrets out. I think it’s going to come out anyway though between Victoria/Nick they hate him with a passion. Time to stop with the Mariah/Tessa story it’s forced and they don’t seem comfortable at all with it especially Camryn Grimes. She’s going along for job security I guess. Put Tessa and Kyle together there was chemistry more than him and Summer anyway. Mariah needs to be with Theo something different it’s not realistic for him to be with a recently divorced Lola. She won’t let someone get that close again she’ll only string Theo along. She knows he’s in love with her why even try anything with them…
Keep Theo on show.He s so refreshing,good dresser & handsome.Enjoy his character!
They’ve come back with terrible storylines after being away so long???? Guess better writers would help!
I agree
Your losing fans because of the revolving door of stories…changing sex partners…ridiculous stories…rehashing the same old stuff…dragging out storylines past the patience of the viewer. However…putting in your little political messages is enough for me to turn you off after 30yrs. Bradley doesn’t get it…keeps these mindless writers to write the same ol’…same ol. I’d rather watch an old movie.
I’m confused what political message? I think that our government has this country so divided we’re seeing things that aren’t there.Now I’ll tell you who I wish would go off the air CNN, Fox News and all the other divisive political media outlets and their shows. If I have to hear from tucker carlson,don lemon, rush limbaugh, or any of the Uber conservative judges I’ll scream. End of the day trump and cronies, biden and cronies are no better for this country than the other. That goes for both parties two they’re both royally screwed up from the floor up….
There isn ‘t a political message. Well, not until your rude as Hell screamfest.
I happen to really enjoy Tucker Carlson. But we’re here to talk about SOAPS.
Rush Limbaugh isn’t even on TV.
I agree story lines just don,’t make sense
I only watch Days, and I only watch it through the NBC app, but I know the show receives zero promotion. Did ABC and CBS do a good job promoting the return of their soaps? I recall seeing one ad on TV with GH stars (can’t remember where), but with so little else to promo, a big relaunch seems like a definite missed opportunity. I really don’t want to see the soaps die out.
Same. I’ve been binge-watching “Days” since Covid started. Our Governor likes to have her press conferences at 1PM EST, so I’ve learned to adapt. It’s great to have Sami back. She adds a lot of excitement to “Days”.
I quit watching y&r when I realized it was pretty people reading lines, not really acting. Much of Bold the same way. Stories were so lame they were limping. EB has been phoning it in for years. Occasionally they’d find a gem. Preferred older YR, ATWT and GL, but I gave up on them when the pretty plastic people took over before they were canceled.
Sad, several of the soaps were well written and had good characters. But people can’t seem to pay attention to slow burning story lines anymore.
I have been watching Y&R since the seventies and have reached the end of my rope. These people are supposed to be the top execs in the business world and yet these people still hire Theo and trust Billy. Victor has done some very bad things but Jack is Snow White …… boring. The main actors are getting up there and there are no strong characters to carry the show, the future does not look good for the remaining fans. Also tired of Adam. Something has to happen immediately or fan support will be like a ghost town. Sorry.
Y&R does need to be spruce up and where is Paul? People are frustrated with everything going on in the world we want to see something exciting and not the same old stories recycled with the same people. Don’t let me get started with the Bold & Beautiful, enough with Bill bouncing back and forth with Brooke and Quinn and Shauna doing the unthinkable with Ridge. Don’t want to see this story line at all and I am sure no one else want to see it.
I stopped watching Y&R, not one story is interesting. GH & DAYS are keeping me entertained.
Now that I am here for. Unless GH makes the mistake again to make it General Mafia, I’m a faithful watcher.
Y&R was the most watched show for ages, now it does feel like not a lot of effort is being made.
The reruns just reminded viewers how great Y&R used to be. Now there’s nothing new or interesting about the show. They’ve rewritten character history and brought characters back from the dead so many times that I have zero emotional connection with any character or storyline. While it’s comforting to see the vets they need to add new characters and actors. Also, there are no “young and restless” characters like the young Jill, Paul, Nikki, Nina, Danny, Phyllis, Dru, etc. Everyone is wealthy by family or association and has no real drive.
I hope the AMC and OLTL revivalists are paying attention.. as much as I loved OLTL, and would love to see it come back in some form now that ABC has the rights back (my preference would be to blend some of the characters into GH like they did before the Prospect Park disaster and with Nora Buchanan popping up on GH occasionally…), but I can’t imagine a single Network executive looking at these numbers and thinking.. you know what would work in the former AMC/Chew slot.. another Soap (or 2).
I think that ship has sailed. What a rotten deal all of that was. I hate to mix metaphors, but that was such a roller coaster. Cancelled, then sort of brought back, then fewer shows every week, then characters moving to GH and people having a cow about that. Then oops, you can’t use those characters, and that scramble (which ended ok, except that those characters are all dead except Roger as Franco).
I would watch old episodes. Not new ones. It is fun to have “Nora” around occasionally.
I am enjoying the soaps everyday.So glad Y&R &B&B came back.It’s possible people just aren’t used to them being back yet
Here in California the issues are the constant interruptions by the Governor or Los Angeles County (I live in the viewing area, not in LA County) it can be a daily occurrence. It’s tough watching something then a half hour in it’s interrupted. Same goes for DOOL only a majority of the time LA County has take the entire hour.
Same thing here in the Chicago area. These soaps are constantly being interrupted. That cannot be helping and I was hoping the local stations would have rerun the interrupted episode(s). As for streaming? The shows are “mildly interesting or “mildly amusing” at best. The adjective “hilarious” they use for these so called comedies is way overused.
One thing I can say about the pandemic is thank you for breaking me from watching daytime tv!!! NOT WORTH watching any of it!!!
Its.totally.boring.now
I can’t speak for everyone but our governor or mayor is using Y&R time slot to talk about COVID-19. It’s the only shows on tv that is not a repeat & I believe they’ve gotten used to being in the lime light no matter what the purpose. I always miss 30-45 minutes of each episode.
Here in flyover country as well. I do wonder sometimes, just like our STORM TEAM! if they just like being in TV. All the stuff we are told could easily be fun on the bottom of the screen.
I stopped watching Y&R a couple of months before the shutdown because I hated the story lines, & then they suddenly had Kyle sleep with Summer again after supposedly being so crazy about Lola (his wife!) I don’t care for Summer & then Kyle acted like a dog in heat…Poor Billy can’t catch a break & Victoria always gets away with her bad behavior… Victor is so predictable & never has to account for his horrible deeds for long… Sadly, after being a fan since Y&R went on the air, it didn’t take me long to realize I wasn’t going to miss it. Same old bed hopping stories, pregnancies, divorces, remarrages, boring, boring boring… not surprised the ratings are off. Much better tv on Amazon Prime & Netflix.
Y and R needs better stories. I have been a viewer since it first came on the air. Since it came back after hyatis, its booting.
Same thing with Bold and Beautiful. If they don’t get rid of Shaunna and get Ridge and Brook back together, I will no longer watch my favorite soap!
Soaps have run their course. The reruns were terrible. I didn’t realize in my teens how bad the acting was in the eighties
I have watched y&r since the 70’s. Couldn’t wait for you to come back on. However, here in CA, our governor cuts in 1/2 thru the show! I think that is part of the problem. But I look forward every day to watch this soap!!
I loved loved loved Y&R. I watched for years and recorded if missed.
I quit watching the show once the pandemic hit and I began following Eric Braeden and Ashley Davidson on Twitter.
I have no interest in knowing what their thoughts are on the matter.
If you see their post I’m not the only one that feels that way.
I miss seeing the show but I’m not watching another show. Farewell Y&R wish you luck.
Bold and the Beautiful, came back as a bus it sucks, writers need a better story line. This is ridiculous, im not liking this story line at all.
I could not agree more. I’ve watched from the beginning but I’m ready to say farewell also.
The ratings are down because they too off channel 9 CBS a as free channel. Now unless you have cable or satelite you don’t get to see it. Dissatisfied at tv channels. Y&R is the best soap on tv and I cannot watch it any more. Neither can millions of retired people who cannot afford pay tv.