Have people lost interest in soaps?

DH and I listened to the Archers religiously and the last episode we listened to was when someone I can’t remember the name of either jumped or fell off a roof and was killed. After that we decided it was getting a bit silly. My favourite character? Walter Gabriel😂!

I still listen to the Archers

I enjoyed Corrie in the early years. Ena Sharples, Minnie Caldwell and their 3rd friend were great. My sisters and I still caution each other to ‘think on Minnie Caldwell’. My mother was scandalised by it, especially by Elsie Tanner who she dismissed as blowsy or common 😂
I stopped watching about 15 or more years ago after the 13 year old foster child gave birth on her own, having concealed the pregnancy. It had begun to feel like I was watching work. Its main skill for so long was to combine drama with humour. When it became a misery fest, I was out

I don’t watch soaps any more I find they’re just a load of rubbish give me Mary Berry any day and Netflix films

I watched Corrie and Eastenders from their first episodes, but 20yrs ago, I realised that they were dominating my evenings, so I stopped.

I did watch the recent Eastender birthday week, but have no desire to start watching again.

Aveline

All these opinions on soaps who admit they haven't watched any for years

😆

Once they became an endless round of murder and adultery I gave up.
That's because they have to pack into 30 minutes what would normally stretch over a much longer period in real life. We get quite a few murders in East London.

All these opinions on soaps who admit they haven't watched any for years

It may be an economy but I find the lighting everywhere so dark and dingy makes them a difficult watch. Also the main underlying remit seems to be nastiness with the odd bit of real life thrown in. All human life is certainly NOT there.

Deedaa I’ve never intentionally watched Doctors and didn’t know that about Eddie Redmayne but just remembered that Emerdale Farm started as an afternoon soap originally then got promoted to prime time later. It was engaging then.

All of the actors in Emmerdale and Coronation Street were good and I suppose the same must be said for East Enders * but* all that hatred and venom and snarling and sobbing must be exhausting for them 😩

I used to watch Eastenders years ago when the characters resembled people I had actually met in the Eastend, I watched Emmerdale when it was Emmerdale Farm because again the characters were the sort of people I knew in my own village. Once they became an endless round of murder and adultery I gave up.

The only soap I've watched recently has been Doctors at lunch time. Now the BBC has seen fit to cancel it and replace it with repeats of appalling game shows. It's a great shame because so many stars got there first chance on Doctors - Eddie Redmayne for example - and they weren't afraid to come up with some really off the wall episodes. There was the week that all the stories were based on Jane Austen and another week when they were all based on Shakespeare sonnets. Not something you see on Eastenders! How ever all is not lost. UK Drama is showing Doctors from the beginning with 2 episodes a day. I didn't start watching until 2006 so I've got plenty to enjoy.

I agree Ziplok when any tv drama but particularly a soap starts to “leak” into the news- that’s the death knell

I especially resent the BBC advertising their own stuff with repetitive trailers for Eastenders as though fans are going to somehow forget to watch.

I miss the days when there were only 2 channels so everyone would be watching the same thing and you could talk about it at school.
But I love now being able to please myself when to watch on iplayer etc. So if the phone rings mid programme you really don't mind.
Swings and roundabouts!

I stopped watching soaps years ago (20+ years). Some I have never watched such as Eastenders and the Australian soaps that used to be on tv. The ones I used to watch (Coronation Street and Emmerdale Farm, re-named Emmerdale), I stopped long ago because the story lines, as far as I’m concerned, became utterly ridiculous and so far fetched. Coronation Street lost its humour and Emmerdale (Farm) lost its plot (farming life? What farming life?) in my opinion. All those unrealistic story lines they had that they would build up on using both trailers and the local tv news stations put me off them completely. (Aircraft crashing and killing half the cast in Emmerdale for eg). Utter rubbish.
Trailers for many soaps now seem to show nothing but characters displaying hatred towards each other, shouting each other down or wanting to commit mass murder! I don’t like that kind of “entertainment “ personally, so choose not to watch. I’m probably in the minority otherwise these programmes would have ended years ago.

Yes completely lost interest and haven’t watched any for many years. I used to watch Emmerdale and Coronation Street. I’m not a great tv watcher preferring a book to read.

Of the younger people I know, I dont know a single one who wateches the soaps.

I remember Dr Kildare. I had a serious crush on him. And the fugitive though I think that was more of a serial than a soap.

There were a lot of American shows on tv when I was little or it seemed so and I do remember Peyton Place but have absolutely no idea what it was about.

Aah! dogsmother Crossroads of the flimsy scenery, Amy Turtle’s brummy accent, she regularly fluffed her lines “yes Mrs Richardson, No Mrs Richardson” and Miss Diane. Much parodied since on Victoria Woods’ Acorn Antiques sketch.😂

My older sister came straight in from work to watch though even with everyone else criticising it scornfully. I’d watch with her too 🎶 dum do dum do dum 🎶

Wasn’t it shown before the evening news in those days I think it was. So all the other “adults” were just waiting to watch the *boring news” and loved to hate it😅

Guilty of indulging, but I don’t believe anyone’s mentioned Crossroads yet! Another old favourite.

I used to come home from school, and watch Peyton Place, totally loved that programme. I also loved Knots Landing, which I used to watch in the afternoons when my children were at school.
But the recent soaps are so badly acted, storylines are so far fetched you just cannot relate to any of the plots.

In soaps, everyone has slept with everyone else and murdered someone, there is an awful lot of shouting and mental health issues. That sums them all up.

Doodledog

Why 'even older people'?

Soaps have always appealed to a range of age groups, and I can see no reason why streaming services wouldn't attract older people as much as younger ones.

There is this mistaken impression that older people mostly just watch terrestrial television and don't use streaming services. This is rubbish as I regularly use the I Player, watch Youtube more than any other broadcaster, and I know loads of people in their sixties and seventies who use Netflix. I think the decline in the soaps, apart from the overkill with episodes and the depressing storylines, could also be to do with people having other things to watch.

Why 'even older people'?

Soaps have always appealed to a range of age groups, and I can see no reason why streaming services wouldn't attract older people as much as younger ones.

Haven’t watched Neighbours since Kylie Minogue was in it. That’s going back a fair way,80 s I think. I don’t watch soapies or even many serials these days.

I think people's tastes are changing and it shows even older people want to watch Netflix and Prime rather than rely on the four main channels. I've noticed as well some of the soaps have been cancelled in rccent years and it's possible in ten years time, the three biggest ones could go.