Soaps are supposed to be a dying breed, aren't they? In the last few years, we have seen long-running shows like All My Children, Guiding Light and One Life to Live stop production because the audience supposedly just hasn't been there to justify the high cost of producing an hour of television five days a week. One of the few shows left on daytime television is The Young & the Restless and according to Bing, it actually is their fifth most-searched television show of 2014. Why? The Michael Muhney scandal of course!
Fans of Y&R are likely not at all surprised by the fact that their show placed directly behind AMC's The Walking Dead in the years' standings. 2014 was a year of total chaos and transition for the CBS soap with fans spending the first half of the year totally up in arms. Last December, Y&R show-runner, Jill Farren Phelps, decided to fire Michael Muhney, an extremely popular actor who played a pivotal character on the show. Making it even more scandalous was the fact that Muhney had been accused of sexual misconduct by a costar.
What the media quickly learned was that Muhney's fan base was a lot stronger than anyone had ever realized and when the group banded together to boycott the series (to knock down those necessary ratings), it actually worked. Muhney is now working on several different film projects, his character has been recast and Y&R's ratings are still significantly lower. But the shows' online hits would be great because soap fans used the internet to express their dislike of Phelps' machinations and while she still is the shows top banana, the balance of power is most definitely a bit different now. CBS hasn't fired her, but they have brought in new writers to offset her a bit.
The things going on behind the scenes at Y&R this past year were probably far more exciting than anything that the writers' crafted to unfold onscreen. Bing's standings pretty much prove that, don't you think? If you're a fan of daytime, how often were you searching for info on your favorite show this past year? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below!
