Q&A with Susan Lee
(Senior Vice President, Daytime Programs, NBC Entertainment)

She's perhaps the most hated, most misunderstood woman working in soaps. She's NBC Daytime executive Susan Lee, the woman accused of killing Another World and Sunset Beach, of hating old people and of having no regard whatsoever for NBC's loyal viewers. Well, after a freewheeling chat in her office (complete with two varieties of Nabisco cookies!), I can honestly say that Lee's critics are wrong. She's a businesswoman. She's a realist and "she's just a mom," says one of her coworkers. OK, so Susan Lee is not the devil — but she's not off the hook yet!

In part one of a two-part interview, Lee addresses Sunset's future (the interview was done 10 days before the show was canceled, but her remarks are quite revealing), the decision to cancel AW and, of course, the force of nature that is Passions creator/head writer James E. Reilly.— Jonathan Reiner

The killer question. Creatively, the show is in very good shape. The stories have really clicked. But one of the issues we have right now is numbers. I am concerned about the numbers. In the next month we'll be making a decision, and that will be a much bigger decision on various levels. There's a lot of concern among the affiliates, and they are certainly looking at the numbers and some of them are making other decisions as far as opting for other shows. They're worried that the numbers Sunset has right now [portend] to a shaky future.

We've definitely seen fewer on-air promos for Sunset.

Naturally, with Passions launching, Sunset took a hit as far as promotion. But to be honest, Passions actually had less initial promotion than Sunset. If anyone remembers, when we put Sunset on the air, we really bombarded — we had a lot of promotion. I think there's also a sense... I think the focus on promotion has dropped a little bit as far as daytime is concerned, in that everyone feels there needs to be word of mouth and the viewer who is already watching needs to be pulled in by the show itself. And it's very hard to get people to watch a soap who aren't already watching soaps.

I also think the reality is that when NBC prime time was doing well there was a little less time dedicated to [prime-time] promotion because they could share the wealth a little bit. This season has a lot of new shows and they started promoting earlier and the soaps lost some of that promotion [time].

Did you guys learn anything from the Sunset launch that you applied to the Passions launch?

We absolutely learned some things. It reinforced what we all know, which is that it takes time. I think we learned that family is important. We learned that you need to take things slowly and make sure the viewers care about the characters before you jump-start them into story, which is a trick! How do you keep them interested and at the same get them to really like the characters, which takes time that we don't always have. We really learned that you must do both. If they don't care about the people they're certainly not going to be tuning in every day to see what you do with them.

We learned that you have to make sure you have the traditional elements — these are things that Sunset learned and incorporated over time. And I guess it does go back to family, siblings, friends. Sunset always had friends. We were trying to create a sort of "Friends" family. And I think this audience still wants very traditional... even if it's not an actual parent... an authority figure, sibling and families. People relate to that.

Sunset has done a great job over time of balancing traditional storytelling and the outrageous. With Passions, we went into it saying we have to do something that's different, something that you can't just depend on from on-air promotion.

Did you have damage-control plans for dealing with the Diana storyline?

We were surprised at how many people were offended. We expected it to get people talking, but we were all surprised at the amount of people who thought it was offensive. It's interesting, because in the world we live in with television and feature films doing what they're doing, we're so used to them taking someone's life and actually sort of tearing it apart. And [Passions creator/head writer] Jim [Reilly] said, "We have a character who thought she was all the things Diana's greatest fans think she is and was."

We didn't quite have a damage plan because it was only on for a few weeks and we just didn't think it was going to be taken that nastily.

I also think what Jim was trying to do, and this gets back to what we learned, because you don't have a history that a soap being on the air for 20 years does, you need to give the audience things they can grab on to. And as Jimmy thought about it and thought about it, he said, "My God, here is this woman who is so admired by so many Americans that if you take a character who also really loved her, it's an immediate point of entry." And what's interesting is that after all this died down, this did not damage the character of Sheridan. She was embraced. Jim almost did it... he did get them to immediately bond with her. They hated us for doing it, but they loved her.

From a publicity standpoint, the attention the show got in the foreign press must have been a dream!

I think it's mixed. It created a lot of talk, which is terrific. I just think that it was also blown out of proportion. It was an element of a story, but that wasn't the story. Some people who were offended by it said, "Well, I'll never watch that show." Oh, my goodness! That's like someone telling you about a small incident in a film and then you say that you'll never see that film!

What are the strengths and weaknesses of the three shows?

I don't want to talk about any weaknesses! I just want to talk about the strengths!

Days? One of Days's enormous strengths is the history it has, and the continuity. People who have not watched the show for years and years still know it has that sense of family, good values, a sense of caring. Days has a real strength in the traditional elements and it has managed to grow with the times. Although it still has held on to its viewers it also appeals to younger people. It continues to be the No. 1 soap with women 18 to 34 and has very strong teen appeal.

I know that NBC gets accused of only wanting teenagers watching — I don't know how it got interpreted that way. I keep saying to anyone who'll listen that we want everyone to watch NBC. If you eliminate any one of the age groups you're in trouble, but to say that you don't need teen-agers... my perception of everyone I know who watches soaps is that they started watching in their teens or in college.

Jimmy and I were having this conversation and we started laughing. We said, "Oh, All My Children! I loved it when it was Jenny and Greg!" And how old were they? Were they 30? No. Were they 20? No. They were in high school! When I first keyed into Y&R, it had kicked off with these four sisters — they weren't thirtysomething. We just started comparing notes about the stories that stick in your mind.

In regards to Passions, the vehemence with which people have come after Jimmy, the show and me, in particular... that we only want a show for teens... I look at my own soap history. My mom started watching As the World Turns when I was born, and she was watching for Eileen Fulton (Lisa), who was [essentially] a teen-ager, and Bob! She was watching for that sense of family but also for the young people. You watch for all different ages, but some of the best moments in soap history, for me, were some of the young stories.

Sunset? Its strength is its enormous range of characters and stories, and they have a really good pace. And they've reached a place in the storytelling where they have things happening and I think it's really moving and you feel involved.

Passions? Jimmy has had an incredible challenge launching a show in this environment. I think he's tried to do something really different. It's just really terrific storytelling. He does balance the elements of the paranormal with some very good storytelling. I think we need more good storytelling in this genre across the board.

Since NBC owns two of its shows why isn't there a writer-development program?

We had one in New York that [former NBC East Coast programming executive] Kathy Talbert was running and she actually did a terrific job. When I look at the writers that have come out of that program... they're writing scripts, they're writing breakdowns and some of then are involved in long-term. And I feel badly because I think when we needed to be doing the most development is when we were doing the least. Over the last decade or 15 years, actually, we needed to be training a lot more people. I know writers and some of them would admit this themselves: In some cases we were so stuck that people were promoted before they were ready. And I don't think that's ever a service. These jobs are just deadly.

Passions has fewer writers listed in its crawl. Is that because Jim did most of the early work himself?

That's also who Jimmy is. Jimmy would be the first one to say this: he really does live and breathe his work. He acknowledges that he doesn't have... he has a family, an extended family — his sister and the kids, so he lives sort of vicariously through them. But he's not... when they are with him in the summer that's one thing, but basically during the week they're in New York and he's at his house and he lives and breathes what he does. He doesn't have a wife and five kids. And he admits that in some sense you sacrifice some elements of life in order to do it.

And I think a lot of people today don't want to do that. I know I wouldn't want to.... So you have a lot more people trying to partner with another writer. And that's hard, too, because you don't get a single vision. So Jimmy does do a lot of the work himself, like an old-fashioned head writer, in a way.

You mentioned before that Scott Sassa [President, NBC West Coast] was concerned about the Diana stuff. How much input do Scott and, I guess, Ted [Harbert, President, NBC Studios] have?

Ted's just begun, so, to be honest, I don't know. I think Scott and Garth [President, NBC Entertainment]... I think they realize that this daypart is not their forte and I think they're stepping back, looking at the research coming in and just saying, "OK, how are we addressing these issues?" And I think that's an appropriate thing for them to be asking.

Shifting gears, were you prepared for the Another World backlash?

Yes and no. I certainly was prepared for the sadness and the anger —

I understand that your voicemail got overloaded from people —

Overloaded, yes, but it was overloaded with quite personal and nasty things. That's what I was not prepared for. Sometimes in answering them it just created more of a negative conversation. I think what I was surprised at, as someone who has watched this show try to sort of grow and has worked hard to make it stay on the air, and from a personal point of view sat in many meetings where I had my head taken off because I fought hard for the show... it was really hard to be personally attacked and accused of not caring for the show and the fans. I was not prepared for the personal viciousness. That's true. That was pretty stunning.

We hear so many rumors saying things like NBC killed the show by waiting so long to alert P&G that P&G just didn't have enough time to sell it or find a new home. Could you clear some of that up?

What I will say... I certainly don't have accurate knowledge about what they were doing behind the scenes. I think, like any good businessman, you always check out your options if you know there is a question about whether a certain product is going to be bought by a certain buyer. Certainly Days of Our Lives, when they weren't quite sure whether they were staying with NBC, made sure that they were checking out their other options. I would guess that Another World was not waiting until the last minute to check out what their options are.

But there's a reason why Another World was canceled. If you take away all the personal opinions of whether I hated the show and whether I hate old people —

Which you do!

I do! My mother came to visit me and I left her out in the doghouse! I see a gray hair and I fire that person. Seriously, the show, over the last decade, as far as the affiliates are concerned, hadn't performed. If you don't have a real success story, it's hard to sell.

A couple of other issues: Soaps actually are very expensive to produce. And that's one of the reasons why networks keep producing them — because we can afford to. If you're Procter & Gamble and you want to take this show somewhere else, you have to look at who your potential buyers are and whether they can afford it, or whether they're going to cut it down and you're not going to be able to afford to the same product. I would suspect, and you'll have to talk to Mickey [Dwyer-Dobbin, executive in charge of production, Procter & Gamble productions] or someone over at P&G... Mickey is a very smart person and she wouldn't wait until the curtain came down. She would have already checked out every possibility. It's usually very hard to find a home for soaps.

I'm impressed by the fact that there was no commercial break between Days and Passions for Passions's first few weeks on the air. I tape, so I'm able to go to pause the tape and go to the bathroom, but I have horrible images of poor fans having to hold it in.

They're not allowed to leave! Again, we're making it difficult for old people! They have to suffer and hold it in. It's not as bad for teenagers, though... they're younger and they can hold it in longer. Seriously, it's difficult to do but it really does make a difference, we feel, in the ratings.

You didn't address any of your shows' weaknesses.

No, I didn't. Any new show has an inherent barrier. When soap viewers watch a show, part of the mystique is the history. With Sunset and Passions, you don't have the history that an older show does. At the same time, you're trying to create a new generation that will then consider this the show they know from the beginning.

If I talk any more about weaknesses, my shows will never talk to me!

Are you concerned that Days's ratings have sunk since NBC signed that huge deal last year to keep the show?

The ratings overall have sunk, which is part of the problem. This [question] is two issues. One, this is a company... and again, this is why it was so hard with fans of Another World. People would say to me, "Well, no matter what the ratings are, out of loyalty to the fans you should keep the show on. And I thought, "OK, I can do that, but I don't write that check every week and I have people above me who report to Jack Welch at GE and they're gonna say, 'I don't think so.'"

There is always concern when you've made a deal and the numbers don't hold — whether it's Mad About You, ER or Days. The concern is, "Wait a minute — we were basing that deal on at least holding at a certain number." There was some anticipation that because the ratings had been so good and because this business is cyclical that they would come down a little bit. Actually, it's not that they weren't exactly [off from] where they were, but there was an overall fall in the daypart. That has people concerned because a few years ago a show was No. 1 in the 18 to 49 demographic with a 4.6, and now you're talking about a No. 1 show getting a 3.0. That is a concern.

My pet peeve is still Nielsen. I can hammer as much as I want, but it doesn't matter. I sit in meetings where I can't even bring it up. I just have to deal with the reality: I deal with millions of dollars that are being lost to the company because of Nielsen projections. That's across the board in daytime. I can sit in meetings and argue and say that when I go out in the field my anecdotal experience is very different from [what Nielsen says]. But from a bookkeeping point of view my anecdotal experience is worth zero!

This is when you really go crazy: If you look at the demographic numbers and you see a show like All My Children take a really unusual drop from, say, 3.6 to 3.0 - it's like, whoa! What happened? Then you go to the research department and ask, "Literally, how many 18 to 34 year olds left their television sets for the show to drop from a 3.6 to a 3.0?" And then you get the answer back, and it's something like 12! So 12 women went shopping and the sales department has to deal with millions of dollars [in losses]. And that's what is truly disturbing. But, as we all know, that's what we have, and we have to deal with it.

But there is also concern across the board is that we in the daypart have dropped. [Days honcho] Ken Corday and I were talking about this — you have to look for an auxiliary revenue stream. We're going to be doing that in the next few months. We're trying to examine how, though the web sites, do you get people to come back to the television? Everyone has become much more interactive — not just the younger generation — and that's something we need to harness. It's amazing about how many women are out there on the Internet.

When did it all become about money?

It's always been about money. Well, there was one shift. It used to be about selling soap, that's true. It was a different universe back then, though. After that it became about money and reaching this audience. Procter & Gamble was the first to realize this. There used to be a lot more dollars, percentage-wise, going into daytime, but now there are other ways to reach those women and the shows' costs started escalating. It's the acceleration of all of that. It's all about money and daytime is not as profitable as it once was.

But I believe women are still watching, just not in the traditional ways. I saw a commercial for a van with a TV in it, and it's supposed to be in the backseat for the kids, but you and I know that will be fixed in second — people will be watching and driving. And I thought, "There's my soap viewer and she's not being monitored [by Nielsen]."

I've wanted to get soap viewers across the country to descend upon Nielsen. That's what we need to do! They make too much money doing what they're doing, and they've basically told us, "We're not changing our game."

Are you prepared for what might happen if Sunset goes off the air? [Editor's Note: the interview was done 10 days before NBC canceled Sunset]