TRANSITION - AT 5:26 P.M. ET:  This may not seem to be an important story, but it is, and I will explain why.  From The New York Times:

Procter & Gamble, the company that invented the soap opera and gave the genre its name, is no longer in the soap opera business.

CBS announced on Tuesday that it was canceling “As the World Turns,” the 54-year-old soap that is the last daytime serial owned by Procter & Gamble. The show chronicled generations of characters in fictional Oakdale, Ill., as they survived love and loss, but they couldn’t survive the harsh realities of modern television, where scripted dramas have become too expensive to justify dwindling ratings.

The demise of “ATWT,” as it is known to soap fans, means that the two most venerable examples of the genre have been given cancellation notices in the same year. “Guiding Light,” a CBS daytime staple, had been on the air through radio and television for 72 years. CBS informed Procter & Gamble of the cancellation “a couple of days ago,” according to Jeannie Tharrington, a spokeswoman for Procter & Gamble.

“It’s a part of our business that we will miss, and it’ll be hard for us to say goodbye to the show,” Ms. Tharrington said. Procter & Gamble said it would try to find a new home for the series. Given the current economic climate, though, that is considered unlikely.

COMMENT:  Why is this story important?  Well, to fans of ATWT, that's obvious.  But there are other reasons.  First, actors and writers are thrown out of work, and a great training ground is being eliminated.  Soap operas have traditionally provided employment for up-and-coming actors, writers, and directors.  Many of the biggest names you know got their start in "soaps."  They learned their craft while setting their sights on higher things. 

Further, soaps appeal to older women, and they are simply not wanted by advertisers, another example of the marginalization of older groups in the society. 

But perhaps most important, soaps are usually "client-owned" shows - shows that were originally brought in by advertisers, rather than developed "internally" by network programming departments.   In the early decades of television, that was the norm - one sponsor for each show.  Dinah Shore was Chevrolet.  Milton Berle was Texaco, and then later Buick.  Jack Benny was Lucky Strike, in the days when cigarette ads were accepted.  The result was, often, a kind of diversity.  Today, what you often see on TV are the values of Los Angeles and New York.  There was, in the earlier days, a greater attention to the standards and tastes of middle America.

That doesn't mean it was all wonderful.  It wasn't.  There was plenty of mediocrity and blandness, and copycat programming.  And yes, there was a blacklist, unacceptable in a free society.  But there was also Philco Playhouse, Studio One, and The Twilight Zone.  The gold may have been tarnished, but it was a golden age.

About eight years ago I ran into a representative of the advertising industry while waiting for a meeting at CBS, Hollywood.  He told me he was trying to interest the network in trying, once more, to have sponsors bring in shows that reflected the family values of most Americans.  I don't think he got very far.  One problem, of course, is that, since the early sixties, it's been virtually impossible for a single sponsor to finance an entire show, the cost of programming having risen dramatically.  What you see today, as you know, is a commercial "block" filled with many sponsors in back-to-back commercials.  When the block comes on, you know you have time to do something else. 

So, another icon falls, and with it memories of another television age.  Was it better?  Not necessarily, but it was more interesting, and, in an odd way, more diverse.

December 9, 2009