Somerset (TV Series) - Broadcast History

Broadcast History

NBC and packager Procter & Gamble Productions first launched Somerset as an extension of the mother show, adding the locales to each program's title. They titled the parent program Another World in Bay City and the new spinoff Another World in Somerset, in the hopes that the large loyal following of the mother show, which aired an hour earlier than Somerset at 3:00 PM/2 Central, would stay tuned for several of their favorite characters to appear in a new storyline. By March 1971, NBC shortened the title to simply Somerset and reverted AW to its original title, separating the two shows' identities and slowly phasing out the crossover characters by February 1972.

Running at a timeslot prone to affiliate preemption, 4/3 Central, Somerset struggled throughout its nearly seven-year history to gain a foothold in the daytime pantheon. Upon its 1970 debut, ABC's Dark Shadows held the ratings and clearances lead, but an unpopular storyline that had been running for months combined with the preimere of Somerset, enabled the newer show to push Dark Shadows ratings down considerably, and Somerset achieved promising ratings during its first year. Dark Shadows had, during the 1969-1970 season, achieved a ratings of 7.3, but by the end of the 1970-1971 season, Somerset had a rating of 7.0 and Dark Shawdows a rating of 5.3. A successful revival of the game show Password entered the network's schedule at that slot during the 1970-71 season, and its ratings success cut into the Somerset audience. Some signs of hope occurred during the Slesar period (CBS' The Secret Storm ended a long run against Somerset), but by the time he left in 1973, the other networks had plugged surprisingly strong games (CBS' Tattletales and ABC's The $10,000 Pyramid) at 4/3.

Things went downhill from that point, as numerous affiliates began defecting the soap in favor of cartoons, syndicated sitcom reruns or talk shows, and old movies. Perhaps the nail in Somerset's coffin came when ABC acquired Edge from CBS in December 1975 and placed it against Somerset. With Somerset having nowhere near the ratings figures AW had solidly maintained during the early 1970s, NBC cancelled it on New Year's Eve 1976. Somerset's place on the schedule was given to another P&G soap, Lovers and Friends, and its timeslot was given to The Gong Show.

Somerset is noteworthy in daytime scheduling history as one of three soaps to premiere on the same day, along with ABC's The Best of Everything and A World Apart. Neither of the ABC shows lasted past 1971.

This was not the only occurrence of more than one serial beginning at the same time; on July 5, 1954, five serials debuted (four on NBC, one on CBS) and on September 27, 1965, ABC and NBC each debuted two new serieals each. In the case off all nine series, none of them lasted more than one and a half years.