The champagne toasts from New Year's Eve won't hold a candle to the toasts daytime fans will be making in celebration of wonderful ratings news that was released for the week of December 30 through January 3: All four soap operas gained viewers as they made the transition into 2020.
According to week-by-week Nielsen ratings, The Young and the Restless picked up an extra 102,000 audience members who watched as Chloe Mitchell (Elizabeth Hendrickson) revealed she is pregnant and Sharon Newman (Sharon Case) found a lump in her breast.
The Bold and the Beautiful's audience increased by 19,000 during storylines that included Brooke (Katherine Kelly Lang) refusing to tear up her divorce papers and Thomas Forrester (Matthew Atkinson) sleeping with Zoe (Kiara Barnes).
General Hospital pulled in an extra 207,000 viewers as Nikolas (Marcus Coloma) crashed Valentin (James Patrick Stuart) and Nina's (Cynthia Watros) wedding, and Willow (Katelyn MacMullen) and Chase (Josh Swickard) slept together.
Days of our Lives increased its viewership by 68,000 with storylines that included Brady (Eric Martsolf) rejecting Kristen (Stacy Haiduk), "Hope" (Kristian Alfonso) firing Rafe (Galen Gering), and "Steve" (Stephen Nichols) telling Kayla (Mary Beth Evans) that he loves another woman.
Unfortunately, while all four daytime dramas kicked off 2020 with a bang, they were all down in viewers compared to this same time last year. Y&R lost 388,000 viewers, B&B lost 310,000, GH declined by 152,000, and DAYS lost a whopping 456,000. That being said, all of the shows had two days where they didn't air an episode, or the episodes that aired didn't count toward the official Nielsen ratings count.
Time will tell whether or not the upward week-by-week ratings swing continues. If so, could this turn out to be the Roaring 20s for soap opera ratings?
What do you think about the soap opera ratings for the week of December 30 through January 3? Why do you think the ratings improved that week? What were some of your favorite storyline moments from the week? What are some moments you didn't like? We want to hear from you -- so drop your comments in the Comments section below, tweet about it on Twitter, share it on Facebook, or chat about it on our Message Boards.
