Was H&A purely teenage or family soap in the 90s?.

[James Martin]

Neighbours was 5.35 (Northern Ireland had it at 6.30 I believe until fairly late in the BBC era) with H&A generally on 5.10 or 6 depending on where you lived.

I think it was both, though.  Everyone at school watched it, many would go home at lunchtime to watch it in the very early days when it went out at 12.30 and then scoot back for the bell at 1 (it moved to 1.20 during the Gulf War but never moved back) but my mum and granny were both into it too.  Whereas kids just weren't into Corrie or Emmerdale back then.

I think kids always took comfort in it - if something happened to your own parents you'd want to end up with the Fletchers!

I don't think it's the teens kept getting written out, that's always been H&A from day one; the teen cast has always had an exceptionally high turnover.

[nenehcherry2]

8 minutes ago, James Martin said:

Neighbours was 5.35 (Northern Ireland had it at 6.30 I believe until fairly late in the BBC era) with H&A generally on 5.10 or 6 depending on where you lived.

I think it was both, though.  Everyone at school watched it, many would go home at lunchtime to watch it in the very early days when it went out at 12.30 and then scoot back for the bell at 1 (it moved to 1.20 during the Gulf War but never moved back) but my mum and granny were both into it too.  Whereas kids just weren't into Corrie or Emmerdale back then.

I think kids always took comfort in it - if something happened to your own parents you'd want to end up with the Fletchers!

I don't think it's the teens kept getting written out, that's always been H&A from day one; the teen cast has always had an exceptionally high turnover.

I recall a girl who was BULLIED at Primary School for openly admitting to watching Coronation Street. It was literally the days of Phyllis, Mavis, Ivy, Emily, Don, Reg, Maud, Ken, nicer Sally etc etc... Y'know, episodes ending with Gail telling Sarah Loo to brush her teeth. The memories! 

Of course, by the time that "Diddery" was sent down (aka the Brian Park era), EVERYONE in our class was watching it. 

Crazy times! 

[Stewarts Point]

It's target audience would have been...what? 9-15, possibly more aimed at girls than boys, hence a focus on the hunks to drool over (Blake, Shane, Curtis etc) and the girls to inspire you (Sophie and her baby, Selina and her miscarriage, Bobby and her struggles). 

Of course being a boy, you got to enjoy Sophie and Shannon in their bikinis, but then you had to put up with the soppy romance storylines (Blake and Meg or Shane and Angel springs to mind).

Beyond the core audience? Mum's with dinner on their laps, students, shift workers in their 20s, the unemployed, the odd housebound and bored retired types, oh and Rodney Trotter (Del called him soppy for watching Home and Away).

But I think most soap watching adults in the UK at least prefered Eastenders or Corrie or Brookside. And in the late 80s, Dallas and Dynasty too.

[cymbaline]

I think it was definitely aimed at teenagers in those days. It was a soap that many people in my peer group grew out of when they got older and I include myself in that grouping. I still watch and enjoy the early years episodes I've found online but a lot of that is driven by nostalgia. It's tied in with my memories of simpler times, my teenage years and a connection to many of the younger characters who were around my age at the time. It was never a soap that any adults I knew watched to any great extent. My mum and other grown-ups I knew might watch it sometimes if it happened to be on but I don't think any of them went out of their way to see an episode. To tell the truth, I know more people who were irritated by the shouty teenagers. 

It's worth remembering how different soaps were in those days. Neighbours and Home & Away brought a very different sort of soap opera to the UK. If you tuned into the natively produced soaps in those days there wasn't a lot to hold younger viewers. Straight away, that drew the younger viewers to them. In the ensuing years I think there has been a meeting in the middle. The British soaps have more younger characters these days. Home and Away has morphed into something very different and more grown-up.