Here's an interesting press cutting from February 7 1967, published in Kansas' Fort Scott Tribune. In a piece titled Hope's Christmas Show Tops Neilsen, Cynthia Lowry of the Associated Press discussed advertiser prices for commercial airtime, touching on Dark Shadows. "Daytime charges for commercial time are much lower... The [per] minute cost for CBS' As the World Turns, the most popular soap opera, is $14,000. It drops to $3,600 for ABC's Dark Shadows."
At this time, eight months into its run, Dark Shadows was still struggling to establish itself in the ratings, with the network putting the show on probation. With an edict to improve audience numbers within the next three months, the production team set to work on a new character to give the show a fresh direction. In a matter of weeks, Barnabas Collins would arrive at Collinwood and Dark Shadows would finally connect with a mass audience.
1 comment:
It's real interesting to see how DS was veiwed before Barnabas came on board. I heard somewhere that if he wasn't introduced that it would have cancelled before the end of the year. Thankfully we got Barnabas, then Julia and the others.
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