Soap Opera Ratings Race: Bad News For Y&R, Good News For DAYS

The soap opera ratings race for the week ending September 29 shows one soap rapidly losing viewers and another on a slow rise.

The Young and the Restless
The Young and the Restless (YR) has seen its numbers fall over the last year, with some decent weeks compared to the week before and some not-so-decent weeks.

This week spells bad news for the perpetually number one soap, as it garnered 4,334,000 viewers on average overall, down 78,000 from the week before and a whopping 454,000 from the same time last year.

The only place where Y&R made any gains at all was with women 18-34, where it was up a mere 6,000 from last week.

Days of Our Lives
Meanwhile, Days of Our Lives (DOOL) saw a ratings jump about a month ago but a slow decline since. However, it did not lose all of the new viewers it picked up several weeks back.

Now, it seems to be on the rise again, pulling in 2,100,000 viewers on average overall, up 13,000 from the week before, but down 97,000 from the year before. In fact, DAYS was the only soap to make any gains overall from the previous week.

The Bold and the Beautiful
The Bold and the Beautiful (BB) remained in second place, garnering 3,487,000 viewers on average overall, down 90,000 from the previous week and 213,000 from the same time last year.

B&B made gains from the week before with women 18-34 and 18-49.

General Hospital
General Hospital (GH) also saw losses, pulling in 2,523,000 viewers on average overall, down 15,000 from the prior week and 188,000 from the prior year.

Like B&B, GH made gains from the previous week with women 18-34 and 18-49, ranking it in second place in those female demographics.