I've just had a theory, could the decline of soaps be attributed to the lesser amount of people who watch them now? Back when soaps were at their best, they were watched by mass audiences in excess of 15 million or more. The ad revenue they brought in meant the soaps would have a much bigger budget which in turn meant employing better talent, producers, writers, and so on.

With viewing figures on a continued downward spiral this has led to an increase in the number of episodes to make up for the smaller budgets due to the lack of revenue. But all this is doing is further depleting the quality. No rehearsal time, working the actors harder, writer deadlines, longer hours, ect.

Particularly in the last 5 years, the quality has fallen dramatically. Now typically drawing around 6 million.

Though i know the BBC doesn't have to rely on ad revenue, but it has suffered terrible budget cuts.

That theory only makes sense if the quality of TV as a whole has also gone down.

You could have a point there. The quality of television in general has gone down since the days alot of genres would have a mass audience. Soaps being no exception. Sitcoms have really suffered aswell.

But there's still quality programming being made elsewhere such as Peaky Blinders or Planet Earth II.

I think people are watching TV differently given the advent of digital TV. There are thousands of channels available nowadays. Therefore I think the amount of viewers that soaps pull in nowadays is excellent considering the day and age we're now in

Are you mad?

We're in a golden era of movie quality TV shows at the moment.

In the days when 15 million people watched soaps there were only 3 or 4 channels available so there literally wasn't much else to watch. These days there are loads of channels, DVD/Blu ray etc so people aren't limited to watching just those 3 or 4 channels so of course less people watch soaps - they have more choice!

Soaps are literally just for the soap fan these days, there generally seen as low-brow entertainment on the whole

I probably should've stated 'British tv in general' But drama is still strong in that regard.

Continuing drama, not so much.

You're basically talking about the chicken & egg scenario - which came first.

The decline of soaps due to less people watching?
or
Less people watching causing the decline of soaps?

There's probably an argument for either and its probably a combination of both.

I think soaps are vying for more of a niche market these days - a declining demographic - hence another reason why soaps have become incredibly homogenous.
They're increasingly competing for the same viewers, and therefore, more likely to play to the populist soap narratives that keep this audience watching.

I think soaps began declining when they started being on more and more nights a week. The storylines can't keep up and get more and more ludicrous by the month, also characters arn't written as well as they once were. It's all shock value, affairs, pregnancy, or murder. We can't invest in the characters any more.

BiB : I think that's what's known as a BGO, (Blinding Glimpse of the Obvious).

As others have said, I think it's just a matter of people having far more choice of channels to watch now, coupled with a change in the way we watch programmes nowadays, ie pretty much whenever we feel like it.
But Soaps still remain the most consistently watched programmes on ITV and BBC1 so "decline" is a very misleading word anyway.

British Network TV, definitely.

I believe it to be one of a few reasons:

- There are so many Digital channels nowadays and everyone has Freeview or Sky, compared to 10/20 years ago when most people only had a handful of terrestrial channels.

- Thanks to all the catch up services and repeats on TV, a lot of people don't bother watching live TV anymore.

- The soaps have all peaked and virtually everything we see nowadays has been done before (and often much better.) Twenty years ago, a murder or a big stunt would hit the headlines but nowadays we're so used to it that it's not a big deal anymore. There isn't as much of a shock impact.

- The fact that there are so many spoilers around (especially on social media) means not much is kept secret anymore so some people only tune in if something big is about to happen.

There are also more episodes on now so some can't be bothered catching up when they miss some or get bored with the storylines of nothing happening/quick overhyped ratings grab.

double post

Everybody watches Netfllix or online TV or digital channels nowadays. I don't bother with regular TV, too much shit on.

Netflix is the future of TV and will conquer the planet by 2020, mark my words.

I think it is due to the poor quality of production now. Another reason might be that ,,when a character is cast and it is obvious from the start that it was a mistake, instead of writing them out, the producer pushes them to the fore to make us like them; this is patronising. Another mistake made is too cast 'actors' because they are related to cast members or related to celebrities, instead of judging their worth by their CV of acting roles. I hope soaps continue, they are light entertainment and appreciated by lonely people. Most of them are still interesting, except Emmerdale, which I have stopped watching.

The viewing figures have only gone down because there are so many ways to watch the soaps now, catch up, bbc i player, itv player, demand5, sky plus etc

I honestly can't remember the last time I actually watched the soaps at the time they are broadcast.

The BBC is not obliged to have 4 episodes of EE a week. It does not need to have advert revenue.

I think the lower viewing figures are down to more episodes. It is a serious committment to watch all episodes

If you miss a few episodes you can be a bit lost. This is not attractive for the more casual viewers.

NB. An end to detailed spoilers would also be very good.