Special Report: News travels fast on the Internet - But are the Execs Listeneing?
When word got out that GL was planning to clone it's No.1 heroine, fan immediately generated a flurry of email messages and online petitions against the controversial storyline. Likewise when AW actor Charles Keating (Carl) revealed that he had been fired on his website - a full week before the soap mags could report the news- the reaction from online fans was immediate and explosive. Within hours they had organized a campaign that included a blizzard of phone calls to NBC studios.
In other words, news travels fast on the Internet, and daytime's online fans aren't shy about making their feelings known. But can all this cyber kibitzing translate into storyline changes? Yes and no, say two of daytime's top executives.
According to Pat Fili-Krushel, president of ABC daytime, online responses from fans are closely monitored. "We have an American Online site and an Internet site, and we get a weekly report of exerpts of what the issues are that are posted on the message boards. It's a about 40 pages long," Fili-Krushel explains. "And when we have time, we go on and look through ourselves. We also conduct polls online to get initial reactions to a story.
But Fili-Krushel is also quick to point out that just because the-powers-that-be ("TPTB" in cyberspeak) are hooked into what fans think, they also realize that online viewers make up a fraction of their audience. "Online fans are one specific type of viewer. They tend to be younger, and a lot are in college, so it's a very narrow sampling of viewers," she explains. "they may like a story or dislike a story, where 40 percent of your other viewers who aren't online don't agree. So you have to be careful gauging by the Internet alone."
And if online fans are hoping to persaude execs to cut short a much-despised storyline or to re-hire a recently fired actor, Fili-Krusel adds that online campaigns aren't the way to go. "If it's an organized campaign, which we see often, we tend to pay less attention to that than to someone who actually sends a personal letter," Fili-Krushel says. "We know if we get a couple of letters, that represents many other fans who feel the same way. But I think the most important thing about our Websites is that we can get an immediate sense of how fans are feeling."
But while Internet fans can immediately express their displeasure with a storyline, that can't always translate into immediate action on the part of the show, says Mary Alice Dwyer-Dobbin, the executive in charge of production for Procter and Gamble's three soaps: GL, ATWT and AW. "We produce two to three weeks ahead of air, and write six to 8 weeks ahead of air. We've already finsihed writing for May, so it's not realistic for fans to think they can have some effect on the short term,"she admits.
Dwyer-Dobbin goes on to explain that online fans often react to a story before it's even aired, making it impossible to evaluate the story's real impact with viewers. "Much of what fans are reacting to so vehemently is in the future. They amy say they don't like it now, but does that mean once it happens rhey won't like it?" asks Dwyer Dobbin.
As an example, she points to GL's Reva clone story, against which fans gebnerated hundreds of e-mail meassages and online petitions before the first scenes had aired. "It hadn't even played yet. We're committed to that story, and we think it's being told especially well," she insists. "The writers are doing a great job with it, and so are the actors. Clone reva as played by Kim Zimmer has barely hit the air, and that's when the real fun starts to happen."
"We knew that we were going to to tell a story that would ask a lot of the audience, and we hope that they'll go with us," continues Dwyer-Dobbin. "Sure it's an uneasy concept for all of us but I hope they will stick around and see how it works out because it's going to be a lot of fun. But at least the fans are talking about it, and that's all I care about.
L.B.