Soap Opera Ratings Race: One Soap Got A BIG Surprise!

The soap opera ratings race for the week ending September 14 finds one soap making a surprise jump, while the others faltered.

General Hospital
General Hospital, which seemed to be hemorrhaging viewers for several months, was the only soap to make any overall gains that week. The numbers coincided with the shock that Oscar has brain cancer, a story many fans are becoming invested in.

GH garnered 2,411,000 viewers on average overall, up 92,000 from the week before, but down 19,000 from the year before.

GH also gained viewers from the prior week only in all three coveted female demographics.

Days of Our Lives
Days of Our Lives was the soap that seemed to be making constant improvements week after week since Head Writer Ron Carlivati’s work began airing a year ago, but things changed for this ratings period.

DAYS pulled in 2,084,000 viewers on average overall, down 78,000 from the week before and 69,000 from the year before.

The only place where DAYS made any gains was with women 18-34, where it saw improvements from both the previous week and year.

The Young and the Restless
Number one-rated The Young and the Restless continued to lose viewers, as it’s been doing much of the year. Many fans are up in arms about the history changes on the soap, especially Jack not being an Abbott.

Y&R garnered 4,023,000 viewers on average overall, down 43,000 from the week before and a whopping 332,000 from the year before.

The soap did make gains with women 18-34 and 18-49.

The Bold and the Beautiful
Sister soap The Bold and the Beautiful did relatively the same as Y&R, in terms of losses. It pulled in 3,285,000 viewers on average overall, down 15,000 from the previous week and 302,000 from the previous year.

Like Y&R, B&B also made gains with women 18-34 and 18-49.