Swept Away? How Soap Fans Really Feel About Sweeps Months

You can feel it coming. Along with the weather changes, soap sweeps months — the months when ratings are used to set advertising rates — can be felt in the way a show that, up to that point, may have been meandering along suddenly seems to step on the gas pedal.

Stories get tighter, parties and weddings get splashier, big reveals start coming fast and furious(er). Even the actors stand up straighter!

Welcome to sweeps month, when star-crossed couples finally get married, murders are exposed, and fan favorites return from the dead. They’re doing it all for you — the fans! (Pay no attention to the accountant in the corner.)

But do the fans appreciate it? We won’t sweep the truth under a rug. Here is what a whopping 12,000+ of you had to say!

Ride the Wave
It’s the best (four) time(s) of the year, cheer 59% of you. It’s what you sit through all the other, tedious plot development for! It’s your reward, in fact, for doing it!

Sweeps month is when the villain gets his comeuppance — well, you know, except for Victor (Eric Braeden) on The Young and the Restless (YR) or Sonny (Maurice Benard) on General Hospital (GH).

For them, it’s when they cry and act contrite and everyone forgives them. It’s when wedding vows are exchanged — and sometimes foiled (watch out Days Of Our Lives Abigail and Chad and/or Sonny and Paul).

And, on The Bold and the Beautiful (BB) it’s when the characters get to leave the studio and show off yet another weird clothing collection. Don’t take sweeps away from us! We’re nothing without them!

Meanwhile, the Rest Of the Time…
And what are we supposed to do the other eight months of the year, wonder a cranky 41%. The show should be exciting every day, not just when there’s money on the line.

If sweeps means stories spinning their wheels in between measurements, you’d prefer the concept swept away for good!

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