Daytime TV was regarded "a money machine for the networks. They can sell advertising spots at high rates on programs that cost relatively little to produce." By 1983, 'The Washington Post' reported, daytime dramas attracted over 30 million loyal fans each day from housewives to bankers to businessmen on their lunch hour. Of the male viewers, Agnes Nixon remarked, "In the last five years (since 1979), there has been an increase because they found they were represented."
At the time, ABC was controlling 50% of all network daytime advertising money. 50% of ABC's profits were coming from daytime programming. In June 1983, 'Loving' was launched. Set in Corinth, a mythical Eastern college town, around the Philadelphia-area campus of Alden University, Agnes Nixon stated, "'Loving' is a direct descendant from 'One Life To Live' and 'All My Children'."
Associated Press reported although ABC was behind CBS in prime time in 1983, the network brought in "greater over-all profits because of its leadership in daytime television." Agnes Nixon continued, "The reason I chose a college campus for a setting is because it gives us a backdrop for today's world … And since we have so many students of college age who are fans of soaps, I wanted to give them more representation on daytime.
"It's not by chance that lots of soaps are set in hospitals. They're a wonderful meeting ground. Any soap is limited to the four walls of the studio. But I felt that a college campus could do that very well. It also affords us a microcosm of life today, from the oldest tenured professor to the youngest freshman. A campus has a lot of story potential because colleges around the country are such fans of soaps, especially 'All My Children'.
"I wanted to represent them, to say, 'Here you are.' So many college students are viewers that we wanted them to feel more represented. We'll be more contemporary, move faster and keep up with the times. No topics are forbidden. We did uterine cancer – I wouldn't want to do any form of cancer that was hopeless – teenage prostitution, child abuse and integrated blacks into stories.
"We try to slip the subject in slowly while the audience is hooked into another story and by the time we're where we're getting our message across, they have assimilated in a way that cannot be done in any other form of entertainment. I don't want to say what socially relevant issues we'll be addressing, because the public may be turned off and not want to watch it."
Videotaped at ABC Television Center in New York, 'Loving' was launched as a two-hour movie on prime time, "We hope they get viewers interested right away. It has a beginning, middle and end. There was a resolution to the one main story." Agnes Nixon was wooed by NBC and CBS but brought the project to ABC because the network guaranteed Agnes that 'Loving' would stay on the air for at least two years regardless of the audience ratings. Agnes would also have total control over the story and production of 'Loving'.
Agnes Nixon previously created 'Search For Tomorrow' and co-created 'As The World Turns' with Douglas Marland. She was also head writer for 'Guiding Light' and 'Another World'. Agnes Nixon continued, "A story that took two months 10 years ago (in 1973) takes only a month to tell today (in 1983). But the biggest change is in the messages we're able to convey to the audience.
"ABC dropped the ground rules 15 years ago (in 1968) with 'One Life To Live', when they allowed me to introduce a light-skinned black woman pretending to be white. Until then, Procter & Gamble owned most of the soaps and we couldn't even have black and white girls rooming together. I remember the first time I wanted to do a story about cancer. The network said, 'Cancer? We have public-affairs shows for that.'
"That was 17 years ago (in 1966) and I had to write out the scenes six months in advance so both Procter & Gamble and CBS could look at them. Uterine cancer is almost 100% curable if caught in time. The only story I would not do is about cancer that is hopeless. We've done stories on child abuse, incest, prostitution … there isn't any problem in society we haven't touched. But cancer that is hopeless is not the kind of message we want to give our viewers."
Douglas Marland also co-created 'Loving' recounted, "Agnes had been working on the show for some time (since 1981). She'd done the bible, the characters and relationships. I started out writing the two-hour movie and then the serial." Agnes mentioned, "'All My Children' has been in an hour-long format for six years (since 1978). I'm still involved with the show and I love it, but I yearned to get back into the half-hour format. I wanted that intensity of focus on fewer characters."
Douglas Marland continued, "An hour is inviting disaster because you need more characters. What you're aiming for is to get the audience involved with the characters. It's a lot easier to get them involved with 16 or 20 than it is 36." Producer Joseph Stuart told 'Post-Dispatch Staff', "'Loving' will deal with the many feelings among families, in contrast to the melodramatic stories that are laid on top of such relationships in other daytime dramas."
Speaking to a group of assembled TV critics from across the nation on the ABC leg of the June 1983 TV Editors' Tour in Hollywood, Agnes Nixon made the point, "Daytime has the ability for character growth. In daytime, we know why people are the way they are. The thing that most distinguishes daytime soap operas from nighttime soaps is the fact that in daytime we have time to develop our characters and the nighttime writers don't.
"All of us are not the same people we were 10 years ago. Every day we learn a little bit, change a little bit. On prime time there is not the opportunity to show this slow character growth. For instance, I would love to know why J.R. is such a bastard. I enjoy watching 'Dallas' sometimes. I think J.R. is a very good character. I enjoy him, and Larry Hagman is a wonderful actor, but they move so quickly that they have never said, 'This is what happened to J.R. This is what trauma he suffered when he was a young child that made him the way he is.'
"We do that on daytime. Everyone know why Erica is the way she is on 'All My Children'. And that's the difference. He is an excellent actor, but I want to know why he is the way he is, what happened in his life to make him so terrible. On daytime soap, we would explain why. Erica: she has a lot of problems. Her father deserted her and her mother when she was at a very impressionable age and she has very low self-esteem. She really needs a man to make her feel marvelous because she only sees herself reflected in a man's eyes. I understand her. My parents separated when I was three months old and I grew up in a very Catholic enclave. I had a very large extended family."
Agnes Nixon enrolled at Northwestern University to learn how to become an actress, "I was in lots of play there, but I was also in the same class as Charlton Heston and Cloris Leachman. My professor saw my acting and said, 'Agnes, you'd better write.' I said to myself, 'Agnes, you'd better forget about acting – you'd better write.' When I finished school (born in 1928), television was just starting. Nobody knew how to do it. We learned by doing it. Anyone who wanted to do it had a chance, really. Today (by 1983) I'm just amazed at all the books and courses being given. If I'd done that, I'd be so terrified. I'd never write another line."
Agnes studied playwriting under Walter Kerr at Catholic University in Washington, "I like the dramatic form. I don't want to write a novel. I need a deadline. I like the whole routine and discipline of it. I don't think I could write the more serious stuff." Of creating characters, "It's like novelists coming up with characters. Once you have a premise, you start with a core group and the characters become a natural extension of that group."
Agnes Nixon insisted, "We don't consciously make the plot move slowly. It's just that we have to have a number of plots moving at once to give the actors a break – they're the hardest working people in show business with 260 episodes a year and every one of them like opening night. We can't work these actors 260 days a year! You can't work the same actors five days a week, 52 weeks a year."
On prime time, "They do 23 to 26 original episodes a year. We do 260. We have no reruns and a new episode every day. This causes the viewers to empathize much more closely with daytime characters than nighttime soaps because the writers are so harassed for instant ratings. There's no time for character growth or explanation." Of 'Loving', "The show itself is the star. A big-name star needs star treatment which denigrates the rest of the cast. It can throw everything off-balance. Soap operas are an ensemble effort. When we see the faces of the characters the actors give them values we didn't know were there, that in turn gives us ideas."
At the time, ABC was controlling 50% of all network daytime advertising money. 50% of ABC's profits were coming from daytime programming. In June 1983, 'Loving' was launched. Set in Corinth, a mythical Eastern college town, around the Philadelphia-area campus of Alden University, Agnes Nixon stated, "'Loving' is a direct descendant from 'One Life To Live' and 'All My Children'."
Associated Press reported although ABC was behind CBS in prime time in 1983, the network brought in "greater over-all profits because of its leadership in daytime television." Agnes Nixon continued, "The reason I chose a college campus for a setting is because it gives us a backdrop for today's world … And since we have so many students of college age who are fans of soaps, I wanted to give them more representation on daytime.
"It's not by chance that lots of soaps are set in hospitals. They're a wonderful meeting ground. Any soap is limited to the four walls of the studio. But I felt that a college campus could do that very well. It also affords us a microcosm of life today, from the oldest tenured professor to the youngest freshman. A campus has a lot of story potential because colleges around the country are such fans of soaps, especially 'All My Children'.
"I wanted to represent them, to say, 'Here you are.' So many college students are viewers that we wanted them to feel more represented. We'll be more contemporary, move faster and keep up with the times. No topics are forbidden. We did uterine cancer – I wouldn't want to do any form of cancer that was hopeless – teenage prostitution, child abuse and integrated blacks into stories.
"We try to slip the subject in slowly while the audience is hooked into another story and by the time we're where we're getting our message across, they have assimilated in a way that cannot be done in any other form of entertainment. I don't want to say what socially relevant issues we'll be addressing, because the public may be turned off and not want to watch it."
Videotaped at ABC Television Center in New York, 'Loving' was launched as a two-hour movie on prime time, "We hope they get viewers interested right away. It has a beginning, middle and end. There was a resolution to the one main story." Agnes Nixon was wooed by NBC and CBS but brought the project to ABC because the network guaranteed Agnes that 'Loving' would stay on the air for at least two years regardless of the audience ratings. Agnes would also have total control over the story and production of 'Loving'.
Agnes Nixon previously created 'Search For Tomorrow' and co-created 'As The World Turns' with Douglas Marland. She was also head writer for 'Guiding Light' and 'Another World'. Agnes Nixon continued, "A story that took two months 10 years ago (in 1973) takes only a month to tell today (in 1983). But the biggest change is in the messages we're able to convey to the audience.
"ABC dropped the ground rules 15 years ago (in 1968) with 'One Life To Live', when they allowed me to introduce a light-skinned black woman pretending to be white. Until then, Procter & Gamble owned most of the soaps and we couldn't even have black and white girls rooming together. I remember the first time I wanted to do a story about cancer. The network said, 'Cancer? We have public-affairs shows for that.'
"That was 17 years ago (in 1966) and I had to write out the scenes six months in advance so both Procter & Gamble and CBS could look at them. Uterine cancer is almost 100% curable if caught in time. The only story I would not do is about cancer that is hopeless. We've done stories on child abuse, incest, prostitution … there isn't any problem in society we haven't touched. But cancer that is hopeless is not the kind of message we want to give our viewers."
Douglas Marland also co-created 'Loving' recounted, "Agnes had been working on the show for some time (since 1981). She'd done the bible, the characters and relationships. I started out writing the two-hour movie and then the serial." Agnes mentioned, "'All My Children' has been in an hour-long format for six years (since 1978). I'm still involved with the show and I love it, but I yearned to get back into the half-hour format. I wanted that intensity of focus on fewer characters."
Douglas Marland continued, "An hour is inviting disaster because you need more characters. What you're aiming for is to get the audience involved with the characters. It's a lot easier to get them involved with 16 or 20 than it is 36." Producer Joseph Stuart told 'Post-Dispatch Staff', "'Loving' will deal with the many feelings among families, in contrast to the melodramatic stories that are laid on top of such relationships in other daytime dramas."
Speaking to a group of assembled TV critics from across the nation on the ABC leg of the June 1983 TV Editors' Tour in Hollywood, Agnes Nixon made the point, "Daytime has the ability for character growth. In daytime, we know why people are the way they are. The thing that most distinguishes daytime soap operas from nighttime soaps is the fact that in daytime we have time to develop our characters and the nighttime writers don't.
"All of us are not the same people we were 10 years ago. Every day we learn a little bit, change a little bit. On prime time there is not the opportunity to show this slow character growth. For instance, I would love to know why J.R. is such a bastard. I enjoy watching 'Dallas' sometimes. I think J.R. is a very good character. I enjoy him, and Larry Hagman is a wonderful actor, but they move so quickly that they have never said, 'This is what happened to J.R. This is what trauma he suffered when he was a young child that made him the way he is.'
"We do that on daytime. Everyone know why Erica is the way she is on 'All My Children'. And that's the difference. He is an excellent actor, but I want to know why he is the way he is, what happened in his life to make him so terrible. On daytime soap, we would explain why. Erica: she has a lot of problems. Her father deserted her and her mother when she was at a very impressionable age and she has very low self-esteem. She really needs a man to make her feel marvelous because she only sees herself reflected in a man's eyes. I understand her. My parents separated when I was three months old and I grew up in a very Catholic enclave. I had a very large extended family."
Agnes Nixon enrolled at Northwestern University to learn how to become an actress, "I was in lots of play there, but I was also in the same class as Charlton Heston and Cloris Leachman. My professor saw my acting and said, 'Agnes, you'd better write.' I said to myself, 'Agnes, you'd better forget about acting – you'd better write.' When I finished school (born in 1928), television was just starting. Nobody knew how to do it. We learned by doing it. Anyone who wanted to do it had a chance, really. Today (by 1983) I'm just amazed at all the books and courses being given. If I'd done that, I'd be so terrified. I'd never write another line."
Agnes studied playwriting under Walter Kerr at Catholic University in Washington, "I like the dramatic form. I don't want to write a novel. I need a deadline. I like the whole routine and discipline of it. I don't think I could write the more serious stuff." Of creating characters, "It's like novelists coming up with characters. Once you have a premise, you start with a core group and the characters become a natural extension of that group."
Agnes Nixon insisted, "We don't consciously make the plot move slowly. It's just that we have to have a number of plots moving at once to give the actors a break – they're the hardest working people in show business with 260 episodes a year and every one of them like opening night. We can't work these actors 260 days a year! You can't work the same actors five days a week, 52 weeks a year."
On prime time, "They do 23 to 26 original episodes a year. We do 260. We have no reruns and a new episode every day. This causes the viewers to empathize much more closely with daytime characters than nighttime soaps because the writers are so harassed for instant ratings. There's no time for character growth or explanation." Of 'Loving', "The show itself is the star. A big-name star needs star treatment which denigrates the rest of the cast. It can throw everything off-balance. Soap operas are an ensemble effort. When we see the faces of the characters the actors give them values we didn't know were there, that in turn gives us ideas."
