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i think the real question here is the different types of soap operas. despite the fact that "soap operas" are most often lumped together as shorthand for shallow, badly-acted, over-the-top melodrama, historically, there have been distinct differences among soaps, as well as their fans.

i would argue that those difference among fans still exist, though given the current state of daytime soaps, i would have a hard time making my case. so i want to take a look at nighttime soaps. first, let me define what i mean by soap opera. for me, soap opera is a storytelling structure in which understanding what is happening, and what will happen requires that the viewer understand what has happened. in primetime, that means any show that begins with the words, "previously on" - everything from "hill street blues" (steven boccho, who created characters who closely resembled everyday people) to "dynasty" (aaron spelling, whose glamorous, larger-than-life characters were fun to watch, but not many of us actually knew people like those characters) - is a soap opera. that said, the target audience for "hill street" was very different than that for "dynasty" and while i suspect there was more overlap among both viewers bases than the marketing people may have realized, no one promoting thse show expected them to compete for the same audience.

unfortunately, this is not the case in daytime, where network executives see the daytime audience as a zero sum game, where only like being more like the other guy can a show capture a larger share of viewers. it hasn't always been this way: years ago, before network execs and advertisers believed that women between the ages of 18-49 were THE ONLY demographic that mattered, shows appealed to a cross-section of (mostly) women, but women with varied tastes and sensibilities. to transfer the boccho/spelling divide to daytime, let's look at cbs: i'm may be oversimplifying a bit, but i've always felt that bill bell's shows, "young and restless" and "bold and beautiful" were the daytime equivalent of the spelling primetime soaps. and the procter and gamble soaps, "guiding light" and "as the world turns" resembled the boccho shows - at least they used to. also of note, the bell soaps are based in los angeles; p&g in new york.

as p&g has pursued the 18-49 female demographic (and truth be told, it's really 18-34 - even 18-24), their shows have become less distinctive. not totally, but the slippage is apparent to those of is who've been watching for decades. just how homogenized daytimes soaps have become has been thrown into sharp relief as i've been watching "ryan's hope" on soapnet. the truly sad part of all of this is that despite efforts to increase soap viewing among younger audiences, the overall soap audience continues to decline. my colleague, sam ford, discusses how can reverse the downward trend in more detail:

http://www.convergencec ulture.org/weblog/2006/11/lega cy_characters_and_rich_his.htm l

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