that last hour, as they have established hits that guarantee them market shares up to five points higher than “Alive’s” peak at 7 am.”

“So essentially, you believe that we’d just be losing another hour to the affiliates?” Logan asked.

“Well…” Kent snorted, “That will be saving the network a lot of money and many headaches sooner than later.”

“Actually, if you will pick up the copies behind the previous data, you will see that more than sixty percent of the money earned from daytime comes from our two soap operas, plus the fact that in foreign markets they regenerate the same amount of money, while “America Alive” has no foreign market value whatsoever.”

“We are all aware of that fact,” Tolan remarked, “But as Simon pointed out, soaps are a dying breed, it makes more sense to just get out and take the hit, rather than continue to see out market shares dry up.”

“Jack, that seems true on the surface, but you have to look a little outside the box…”
Ian saw Wella pull on her ear, meaning he was beginning to step over the line. “I’m sorry let me rephrase that…”

Kent pounded his fist on the table, “I don’t think I care to be told what I already know, by a boy whose only job here seems to be to get us attention by wiggling his fanny in public!”

“Excuse me?” Ian’s buttons had been pushed and Wella could have gouged her eyes out and she still would not have been able to stop her boss now. She just sat back and hoped he didn’t hang himself.

“If you were paying a little more attention to what was going on in the industry instead of ogling my tight little ass maybe HRT wouldn’t be in the decline it’s in.”

There were a couple of nervous giggles, and Kent stood up. “I don’t have to listen to this!”

“Sit down! I respected you enough to let you insult me from the moment I walked in and by God you wee little man, you will sit down, shut up and listen to what I have to say!”

Kent turned to see if Tolan, or any one, would back him up. He slowly sat down in his chair and folded his hands in his lap. “By all means, please proceed.”

“Throughout the world, and even in US Prime Time, soap operas are the highest rated and most profitable programming. You can quibble about those dollars, but we seem to be forgetting that daytime drama is great seeding ground for the network and the entertainment industry as a whole. You would be hard pressed to name one major actor, writer, producer or director working today that didn’t spend some time there. As a whole, we just haven’t kept up with the public. Daytime is still playing to a 1960’s audience, that doesn’t exist. Its story telling is slow and shoddy, and we need to beef that up. You can tune into almost any soap once a week and still not miss many details. When it comes to “Sebastian Manor” you can tune in once a month!”

Tolan turned to the older man on his right, “Is that guy still tied up naked in the chair?”

Ian answered for him, “Yes, as he has been for thirteen weeks now. What we need to do is reinvent or at the least modernize our