Portfolio's September 2008 issue -- the one with NBC's Jeff Zucker on the cover -- is a fascinating read with a design sensibility that, oddly recalls the dearly departed Spy magazine. There are a lot of serious features on the future of the media, the television industry in particular. This caught our eye:
"The audience for daytime soaps, a profitable staple since TV's infancy, has shrunk so dramatically that the form may vanish within a few years."
Wow! Not that we watch soaps anymore -- we did as kids, in elementary school -- but the idea of the entire form is vanishing is something. We always wondered how they managed with all those characters on salary. Susan Lucci earned, when last we checked, a half-million dollars a year. And she's just one character out of a dozen featured players, not even including the producers, writers, etc. How do they make a profit? Now we know: they probably don't with shrinking audiences.
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