Dumb Daytime Moves--expanding Another World to 90 minutes

On January 6, 1975, "Another World" became the first soap opera to expand from 30 minutes to a full hour.  As I mentioned earlier, AW was NBC's top show around this time, and continued to be the top show for the peacock network until around 1978, when the "Luke and Laura" storyline on "General Hospital" began.  Desperate for ratings, NBC decided to expand "Another World" to 90 minutes beginning on March 5, 1979.

I bet you can guess what happened afterwards.

Long story short, the show (as well as NBC's one-mighty soap lineup) hit rock bottom.  It was cut back to 60 minutes beginning on August 4, 1980, but the show was never the same.  Although they did recover some of the lost ratings, it ultimately limped along until June 25, 1999, when it was finally canceled.

I honestly do not know what the National Broadcasting Company and Procter & Gamble (the producers of "Another World") were thinking when they expanded the show to 90 minutes.  That's like making a TV movie every weekday.  Eventually, the quality's going to suffer, and that's exactly what happened.

As I mentioned earlier, the expansion of "AW" to 90 minutes had long-term affects on other NBC shows.

• "The Doctors" was part of NBC's "powerhouse" soap opera block.  Settled between "Days of our Lives" and "Another World", the three soaps popular were throughout the 1960s and 70s.  When AW expanded to 90 minutes, "The Doctors" was bumped to 2:00 p.m., beginning its terminal decline (pun intended).  More timeslot changes to 12:30 p.m. in August of 1980 and 12:00 noon in March of 1982 further weakened the show, and the plug was pulled on December 31, 1982.
• "Days of our Lives" settled into its 'permanent' timeslot of 1:00 p.m.  Since 1980, it as been NBC's most popular soap opera (and ONLY soap opera since 2007).

I have one more question to ask before I leave you for now.

WHY?!