Acapulco Bay

[Carrie Fairchild]

I was listening to the Locher Room Ryan's Hope reunion and Ash Adams (formerly Jason Adams aka the SORASed Johnno Ryan) mentioned that he'd starred in this syndicated soap in the 90's. He said it was shot in Mexico City and was "the worst television ever made". On reading up a bit more about it, it's an adaptation of the successful Mexican telenovelas Tú o nadie and Acapulco, Cuerpo y Alma. Maree Cheatham of Days of Our Lives also starred in it. Adams mentioned that it ran for 120 episodes, so I'm presuming it was produced as a limited run English language telenovela similar to Judith Krantz's Secrets from around the same period. Did anyone watch this? I don't even know if it aired in the US although he did mention that it was huge in Ethiopia. The first episode is below if any of you wish to indulge.

 

[tommie]

This is an odd one for sure! It reminds me a bit of the Swedish-American mess Ocean Ave. I guess there was money to earn in cheaply produced syndicated programming but none of these soaps seemed to take off.

 

[Carrie Fairchild]

This is an odd one for sure! It reminds me a bit of the Swedish-American mess Ocean Ave. I guess there was money to earn in cheaply produced syndicated programming but none of these soaps seemed to take off.

Miami Sands is another one from that era. As you said, none of the syndicated soaps took off, even though there was a healthy enough market in the 90's for other syndicated series like Baywatch, Xena and so on.

 

[Willie Oleson]

Miami Sands

OMG, even the titles are getting worse and worse.

 

[Chris2]

The problem with soaps in syndication is that soaps are typically a slow build from an audience standpoint, and the local stations aren’t going to be patient with an underperformer. Without the network muscle to keep them on the air during those lean early years, they’re just not going to last.

 

[Daniel Avery]

Back then, a weekly, hour-long show like a soap or crime drama typically ended up airing in a weekend slot since so much of the weekday schedule is programmed with Monday-through-Friday shows. Weekend schedules are typically at the mercy of sports events, which have been known to run over and screw up "regularly-scheduled" programming. So you might see 3/4 of an episode one week, then the show might get pre-empted the next week, and a whole episode once in a while---and that's no way to build a fan base for a new show. Weekend viewing is historically lower anyway since people have other things they may want to do.

 

[tommie]

Well, I randomly searched for a thread about Baywatch (that's being rebooted) and happened into this rabbit hole - but someone has uploaded all (?) 60 episodes of Acapulco Bay:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLItDZyvjYV8Vu3iqFhMfcMQrRdEcTjapn

I say "all" because I highly suspect they might've produced the show so it could be cut in half or aired as a full hour show. The comment field for episode 60 doesn't seem full off questions about uploading more episodes at least.

 

[AndyB2008]

Back then, a weekly, hour-long show like a soap or crime drama typically ended up airing in a weekend slot since so much of the weekday schedule is programmed with Monday-through-Friday shows. Weekend schedules are typically at the mercy of sports events, which have been known to run over and screw up "regularly-scheduled" programming. So you might see 3/4 of an episode one week, then the show might get pre-empted the next week, and a whole episode once in a while---and that's no way to build a fan base for a new show. Weekend viewing is historically lower anyway since people have other things they may want to do.

Or in the case of Gerry Anderson's Space Precinct, get scheduled at 11.30pm in New York City.

As if the show didn't know whether it was targeting adults or kids, the 11.30pm slot was on Saturday nights, when most were in bed or going out.

Not to mention Space Precinct in New York City had to face the already established Saturday Night Live.

 

[AndyB2008]

The problem with soaps in syndication is that soaps are typically a slow build from an audience standpoint, and the local stations aren’t going to be patient with an underperformer. Without the network muscle to keep them on the air during those lean early years, they’re just not going to last.

The 1994 syndicated soap opera Valley Of The Dolls initially didn't air in most markets either, which didn't help the ratings.

One station which did air Valley was WJW in Cleveland, Ohio. At the time WJW was affiliated with CBS (Valley would air after the local news, with David Letterman on a half hour delay), but was owned by New World, which distributed Valley. WJW would later switch to Fox after the Fox Broadcasting Company did a affiliation deal with New World (Phoenix, Dallas and Atlanta also switched)