https://www.tvinsider.com/173624/general-hospital-jane-elliot-tracy-quartermaine-abc/
Q: GH never made you and your character the center of the show—the rich, powerful, dynamic hub from which all spokes emanate—the way Guiding Light did with Beverlee McKinsey or The Bold and the Beautiful did with Susan Flannery.
JE: Or One Life to Live with Erika Slezak. As far as I'm concerned, they should have made Tracy the head of the mob. She should have gone one-on-one with Sonny.
Q: Instead, she’s mostly been a supporting player, providing the energy and color and chaos when it was desperately needed but she was never the power base.
JE: That might have done that with Tracy in my earlier years but it would never happen today. Not that long ago I had a conversation with an ABC executive about why they were playing all the young people on the show and not playing the veterans. There is a constant cry from the audience: "Play the vets!" Me, Leslie Charleson, Kin Shriner, Jackie Zeman, Lynn Herring, Genie Francis, you know the list. And what I was told by this network exec is that the young actors are played heavily because that's what the advertisers want. They believe they will attract a younger audience that way, because young viewers are the ones who haven't yet decided whether to buy Kleenex or Puffs and they can be swayed by advertising. Older viewers are not so susceptible. They don’t change their minds and make new, different choices.
Q: Says the 70-year-old woman who just shook up her life in a massive way.
JE: Hey, I’m not saying that I believe this to be true! But it’s how the business operates. Yes, by playing Tracy and the other older characters, you might get your lapsed audience back, but it's not the audience they want. So this is not about the fault of the producers or the writers or the network. It's all driven by the advertisers and the need to attract young shoppers. This wasn't always the case. Soaps used to be about storytelling and characters of all ages and types. We’re not doing that now. We go from event to event to event. The stories are activity driven, rather than driven by emotion. And, unfortunately, it’s easier to write an event than an emotional story, one that has depth and breadth and passion and heart. My hat’s off to anybody who is doing it in this soap business of today, because it’s all dictated by schedule and finance rather than what’s best for the stories. You are told which actors you can use, based on who hasn’t worked beyond their guarantees. You are told which sets you must use. You can’t fault the writers for the restrictions and constraints they work under.
