|
|
 |
 |
Soapheads vs. JocksAugust, 2003 There's no Super Bowl for soap operas yet, but one just might emerge if Anne Sweeney has her way. The president of all the non-sports cable business at the ABC-Walt Disney conglomerate told Business School students at a lecture in May that she is giving ESPN a run for its advertising money. ESPN was already a leader in televised sports entertainment when Sweeney's group launched a cable channel devoted to soap operas in January 2000. SOAPnet shows reruns of daytime soaps in prime time because women's growing employment outside the home has reduced the potential daytime audience for the serials, she said. The channel has landed in the top 20 prime time ratings many times, she bragged, and advertisers are impressed because "when women 25 to 54 sit down to watch SOAPnet, they watch longer than any other cable network offered, with an average of 29 minutes." Lecturing the morning after the Los Angeles Lakers lost a chance to return to the basketball championships, Sweeney couldn't resist observing that "my soap opera fans are far more loyal than, say, Lakers fans this morning." Related Article |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Previous Spreadsheet 
