It has been a season of loss for daytime broadcast TV.
Not only has the viewing audience continued its gradual decline, but daytime's biggest star, Oprah Winfrey, will be ending her show in 2011, and another talk host, Tyra Banks, announced last week that she would be leaving after one more season.
The soap opera world is taking a hit, too, as one of the most enduring soaps, As the World Turns, will stop telling stories after 54 years in September, joining the canceled Guiding Light.
"Viewership in daytime is down, and it's also unfortunately happening at a time of economic downturn. So the combination of the two makes it pretty difficult in the daytime arena," says Bill Carroll, vice president of Katz Television Group.
Winfrey's choice is considered personal rather than connected to the daytime drop, although her top-rated show also has experienced audience erosion. Nevertheless, her departure will leave a huge hole in the daytime lineup that no current host will be able to fill, Carroll says.
Doctors are very in
Daytime's audience loss reflects ratings drops throughout the broadcast day as cable competitors chip away (Winfrey will be taking a major role in her own cable network) and innovations, such as Soapnet and the DVR, let viewers catch up with their shows at other times. But there are also fewer women, the target audience, available to watch during the day, a trend that has been building for decades.
The news isn't all bad, however. The top performers in the talk, soap and court genres still perform well, although most have seen declines over the past five years. Some newer medical shows, such as the syndicated Dr. Oz and The Doctors, seem to be catching on by prescribing useful advice in an engaging way.
Doctors creator Jay McGraw says time-strapped viewers want more than just pure entertainment. "We like to think that we are a very entertaining show ... but we make sure in every episode that we give our viewers usable information," he says.
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