I just think the reason soap fans are anxious when they tune into their favorite soap is different and not in a good way. There is still anticipation as to what the day will bring, how the storylines will unfold. But now that anticipation is often pure dread and fear. Nearly every day viewers are sorely disappointed by what actually transpires on the screen. And lately, what really seems to be the problem is that only one or two stories really grab the audience and when they aren't on, the audience's interest ranges from dwindling to channel changing. To sound like a broken record, this is again a problem of poor balance. Were storylines properly integrated and unfolded at steady pace, it wouldn't be a gamble every time we turn the TV on. In my opinion, it is the guessing game of what will be covered each day and how badly that has fed the fascination with spoilers in the states. Overseas, spoiler mania is still mainly driven by not being able to get enough of storyline developments and the fact that nearly all out of state soaps don't air every day. But here, I get the strong feeling people just want to know how much worse a certain storyline is going to get. Only with a couple of soaps are people eager to find out how things are going to happen out of simple eager curiosity. I see many more west coast viewers on newsgroups asking people on the east coast whether they should tune in that day. Fans who get Soap.Net take advantage of it, asking people on message boards whether they should catch it at night. Does that sound like people who are really hooked to their soap or just watching it out of habit and the off chance something good might air one day? Maybe I'm only running into burned out or frustrated soap viewers, but I would bet on the latter regardless.
