"...IF BRIDGET DOBSON WERE NOT BEEN LOCKED OUT FROM SANTA BARBARA?"...OR "THE BEGINNING OF THE END"!

As you know, Santa Barbara has not excelled in terms of ratings in the USA. In fact, for its entire duration, SB has always remained at the bottom of the ranking. Here we can see the ranking.

But as usual you should not stop at appearances. While SB aired on NBC, ABC broadcast General Hospital (the most followed soap) and CBS broadcast Guiding Light, which was also widely followed. If we consider that, while SB was born, GH & GL went on the air for over twenty years, it is easy to understand how unlikely the audience would have abandoned these historical safe soap for the newborn SB. But something happens. Because, while GH & GL (and all the other soaps on the air then) start to lose audience during the '80s, however SB increased the number of its aficionados. You can see it better in the following graph: the blue curve (SB ratings) grows up, while the red and green curve fall down.

So while SB increases the number of its viewers, all the other soaps lose audience. But please do not automatically think that the public left the other soaps to follow SB. Or at least not only. I really think that SB has attracted a new section of the public. An audience that normally did not follow the traditional soap opera. An audience composed not only of housewives, but a younger audience. For instance, I was 10 years old when I started to follow SB.

What I have said thus far, it only applies until 1988: in fact from that moment on, the ratings of SB begin to decline until reaching a record low in 1992, the year of cancellation. You can see it well in the following graph: these are the ratings of SB divided by season.

Green: growth

Red: Loss

Orange: no change

What happened in 1988 so as to cause such a loss? Eden’ Rape? Well actually it was pretty traumatic to discover that the gynecologist who had examined her after the rape was the same who had raped her. Yes, but can not this be the reason for the ratings’ decline: for instance Luke had raped Laura on GH and later the two were married at the time, and GH did not lose viewers. Oh, maybe I understood: the Bunny’ presence on the show, a mob boss who liked to dress up as a woman at night ... Well, no, it was very funny. What else could have happened in 1988 to cause a progressive loss in the ratings. I can not think of anything right. Well yes, the Dobsons were expelled from the show that they themselves had created. In 1990, Patrick Mulcahey and Frank Salisbury (two historical SB writers) also leave the show due to some disagreements with John Conboy (and the ratings falls again). They were very clever and innovative. Why do  value them? So thanks from the bottom of my heart to New World Television and NBC: you have freed us from a tremendously brilliant show, horribly ironic and so tragically unmatched!