"Days of Our Lives" Faces Its Biggest Cliffhanger Ever

Like I said … history. Make of it what you will, but it needs to be said -- yet again -- that daytime soap operas are the only remaining program genre that are exclusive to broadcast television. After this Friday even that will no longer be true.

Invite job candidates to apply live during the Media and Advertising Community’s Black Talent Outreach Week at MediaVillage.com and AdvancingDiversity.org October 17-20. Apply for jobs/submit your resume here.

Industry observers began fixating on the seemingly inevitable demise of broadcast television way back in the '80s when cable networks began to build steam. Those predictions of doom and gloom always felt a bit overwrought, but here we are in the 2020s watching it happen. NBC ending a run of more than 70 years of daytime drama is not another nail in the broadcast coffin -- rather, it feels like another shovel-load of dirt in its grave.

I don't know anything about the new hour of content coming from NBC News that will replace Days in most markets, but I do know this: If there is one thing the broadcasters' collective daytime offerings need it's yet another hour of news and/or talk programming … amirite?

There's no need to repeat what I wrote when CBS and Procter & Gamble Productions terminated two great American media institutions with the cancellations of Guiding Light in 2009 and As the World Turns in 2010. GL began its historic run on radio in 1937. ATWT, which premiered in 1956, was as much a household name as any brand you care to name. And then there was Disney's unpopular cancellation in 2011 and 2012 of two beloved daytime dramas, All My Children and One Life to Live, respectively.

How I wish Paramount+ and Hulu had been the formidable entities they are today when those four shows were killed off (by executives who are no longer with their respective companies, I might add). Guiding Light could have become the first program to migrate from radio to black and white television to color television to a streaming service. As the World Turns could have been close behind, even though it didn't start on radio.

Looking forward, I'm choosing optimism for the future of Days of Our Lives, despite those naysayers who assert that NBCU is merely fulfilling a contractual obligation by giving it a year on Peacock rather than simply ending it right now. Peacock, for those who may not know, has already been busily expanding the Days franchise … with a holiday movie (Days of Our Lives: A Very Salem Christmas) and two seasons of an over-the-top series titled Beyond Salem that is not so much a spin-off as a companion program that runs parallel to the mothership. And now they are adding O.G. Days to the mix, with promises from its executive producer Ken Corday that the creative freedoms of streaming will allow for more progressive and provocative storytelling. Sounds good to me.

Under the guidance of head writer and recent Daytime Emmy winner Ron Carlivati, Days (and Salem) has been expanding the definition of soap opera storytelling in ways not seen since the power-mad Cassadine family tried to bring about global climate change with a machine that could control the world's weather on General Hospital. Recently, on Days, several lead characters have been possessed by Satan, mad Dr. Rolf (pictured at top) has brought several more back from the dead and has transferred minds and memories from one to another, and characters have gotten away with sinister seductions by wearing a face mask that somehow alters their entire bodies, their voices and their behavior in bed. Salem has been even wackier; all I'll say about that is that heaven has been the setting for much significant storytelling. (The great Loretta Devine has stolen the show as an angel with powerful connections up there.)

The paragraph above will either convince you to watch Days or not. But the biggest cliffhanger Days now faces is whether viewers who may not have experience with streamers, or may not have Peacock, or may not have the money to pay for any more media/technology every month, will follow the show. The way they watch Days now is likely a comfortable habit, and for NBC to break it comes with a certain degree of risk. (This is also true of ABC's decision to move Dancing with the Stars to Disney+ this season.)

Meanwhile, I wonder if CBS/Paramount+ one day will contemplate similar moves for The Young & the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful. (I'm told the latter is such a titanic hit worldwide that it doesn't matter what CBS does with it. Somebody will surely keep it available in the States.) The same goes for Disney and General Hospital. I have to admit that I sometimes watch GH on Hulu at night rather than ABC during the afternoon. Works for me ... but I enjoy having a choice, as I currently do with so many primetime shows. Still, when it comes to television viewing, I suppose we can get used to just about anything these days -- if we really want to.

Click the social buttons to share this content with your friends and colleagues.

The opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author and/or subject(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillage.com/MyersBizNet, Inc. management or associated writers.