Today’s Guest: Ken Corday, executive producer, “Days of our Lives”
One of the many things that bound together the women in my family when I was growing up in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s was their shared love of network soap operas.
KEN CORDAY podcast excerpt: “In 2009, NBC asked me to take an enormous pay cut, close to 50 percent, to continue to produce ‘Days of our Lives.’ Metaphorically speaking, I had my hand on the plug, on whether to continue with the show or not. I decided we had to find another way to make the same show with half the money.”
You can LISTEN to this interview with KEN CORDAY, executive producer of NBC’s DAYS OF OUR LIVES, by clicking the audio player above!
My mother, my grandmother and my Aunt Anna never wanted to be away from a television in the early afternoon hours for fear they’d miss the latest instalment of who was cheating on whom, who was plotting against whom, or whose forbidden young love was in bloom with whom.
I don’t remember what they watched — I just remember being “Shush!”ed a lot and sent out of the living room.
And in the early years of marriage, my first wife—I mean my current wife—always recorded ABC’s “All My Children” on the VCR to watch before bed. I will admit getting sucked into that vortex for a few months, but it was never my cup of tea.
Soaps aren’t commanding the audiences they once did and they are shrinking in numbers. But for those that remain, the loyalty of the viewers is strong and interest is high. That’s why I’ve invited Ken Corday to join me today. He’s the long-time executive producer of “Days of our Lives” and the author of a new behind-the-scenes book about the show, cleverly titled, The Days of our Lives: The True Story of One Family’s Dream and the Untold History of Days of our Lives.
Ken Corday Day of our Lives NBC website • IMDB