Daytime Defenders

Defenders of Daytime's Honor
Soaps by Michael Logan, TV Guide
November 19, 1994

Still recoiling from that salacious sex-o-rama known as the 1994 Daytime Emmy telecast, dozens of actors, writers, and producers -- spearheaded by Guiding Light's Maureen Garrett (Holly) and As the World Turns's Margaret Reed (Shannon) -- have formed the New Image Committee. Their goal: to elevate the image of daytime dram in future Emmy telecasts. "We're used to being demeaned and letting it roll off our backs-but this year's ceremony was the watershed event," says Garrett, referring to the Curt Gowdy Jr.-produced telecast on ABC that blatantly promoted bedroom hijinks over substance and storytelling. "We've got nothing against a glamorous event with sex appeal," she adds, "but that's not what it's all about."

A budding documentarian, Garrett videotaped interviews with 40 of her like-minded peers, edited them to an eight-minute plea-which voices both concerns and solutions-and she and Reed are making it available to the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences as well as network chiefs at ABC, CBS, and NBC. At press time, the group had requested a powwow with Susan Lee, v-p of daytime programming at NBC (which will air the 1995 Emmy show); New Image also wants to establish an advisory sub-committee to sit in on the creative sessions with the company NBC has chosen to helm the telecast-Dick Clark Productions. "We don't want to [control] the show. We want a dialogue," says Reed, who was bumped as a '94 Emmy presenter when she refused to deliver podium copy that made light-hearted references to the Bobbit and Menendez sagas. "We just want the producers and writers to ask us, 'Is this representative of daytime? Is this how you would like to be presented on the night that is meant to honor you?'"

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