Editing Dark Shadows (section)

===Broadcast history===
Perhaps one of ABC's first truly popular daytime series, along with the game show ''[[Let's Make a Deal]]'' (which had moved from its original home [[NBC]] in 1968), ''Dark Shadows'' found its demographic niche in teenagers coming home from school in time to watch the show at 4 p.m. [[Eastern Time Zone|Eastern]]/3 p.m. [[Central Time Zone|Central]], where it aired for almost all of its network run, the exception being a 15-month stretch between April 1967 and July 1968, when it aired a half-hour earlier. Originally, it was aired in black-and-white, but the show went into color starting with the episode broadcast on August 11, 1967. It became one of ABC's first daytime shows to win the [[Nielsen rating|rating]] for its timeslot, leading to the demise of NBC's original ''[[Match Game]]'' and [[Art Linkletter]]'s long-running ''[[Art Linkletter's House Party|House Party]]'' on [[CBS]], both in 1969.

''Dark Shadows'' began with a 4.1 rating in the 1965–66 TV season, tying for thirteenth place out of eighteen daytime dramas. The audience figures only improved slightly, to 4.3, in 1966–67. 1966 was a volatile year for soaps, and many ended their runs between the premiere date of ''Dark Shadows'' in June and the month of December. By that time, six months had passed, and ''Dark Shadows'' had failed to gain major traction. In June, it ranked #13 out of 18 soaps, and by December, the lower-rated offerings were gone and the show officially ranked #13 out of 13 soaps. "The show was limping along, really limping", head writer Sam Hall remembered, "and ABC said, 'We're canceling it. Unless you pick up in 26 weeks, you're finished.' [Series creator Dan Curtis] had always wanted to do a vampire picture, so he decided to bring a vampire — [[Barnabas Collins]] — to the series."<ref name="barnabasratings">{{Cite web|url=https://www.soapsindepth.com/posts/uncategorized/dark-shadows-the-classic-vampire-soap-opera-141834|title=Dark Shadows Remembered: 6 Surprising Facts About TV's Classic Supernatural Soap Opera|date=October 24, 2019|access-date=September 15, 2017|archive-date=June 9, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210609230541/https://www.soapsindepth.com/posts/uncategorized/dark-shadows-the-classic-vampire-soap-opera-141834|url-status=live}}</ref>

[[File:Jonathan Frid Barnabas Collins Dark Shadows 1968.JPG|thumb|upright=0.85|[[Jonathan Frid]] as [[Barnabas Collins]], a 200-year-old vampire]]
Barnabas ([[Jonathan Frid]]) was introduced in April 1967. With a time slot change to 3:30 Eastern/2:30 Central, many more teenagers found the program. By May 1968, the series was still in last place (out of 12 offerings), but rose to a 7.3 rating, the rough equivalent of gaining the viewership of three million households in the span of one year. ''Dark Shadows'' returned to its 4 p.m. Eastern/3 p.m. Central time slot in July 1968, without losing much of its audience. ''[[One Life to Live]]'', which was launched by ABC in July 1968 in the 3:30 slot, also sought to reach the newfound young demographic.

The series reached its peak in popularity during a storyline set in the year 1897, broadcast from March 1969. By the end of May, ''Dark Shadows'' was ABC's most popular soap opera, and by late 1969 it was reaching between 7 and 9 million viewers on any given day, and ranking 11th out of a total 15 daytime dramas in that time period.<ref>Leigh Scott, Kathryn (ed.) (2012). ''The Dark Shadows Companion: 25th Anniversary Collection''. Pomegranate Press, 1990. pg. 151; {{ISBN|0-938817-25-6}}.</ref><ref>[[List of US daytime soap opera ratings#1960s]]</ref>

In November 1969, the 1897 storyline came to an end. With ratings at an all-time high, the writers were under pressure to hold the audience.<ref>Leigh Scott, Kathryn (ed.), The Dark Shadows Companion: 25th Anniversary Collection. Pomegranate Press, 1990. pg. 157; {{ISBN|0-938817-25-6}}.</ref> Fans tended to dislike the portrayal of Barnabas as the pawn of some greater power in the next storyline, known as "The Leviathans". They were more interested in the archetypes of classic horror—the vampire, the witch, the werewolf—than in off-camera suggestion.<ref>Thompson, Jeff, The Television Horrors of Dan Curtis: "Dark Shadows," "The Night Stalker" and Other Productions, McFarland & Co Inc, 2009. pp. 65. {{ISBN|9780786436934}}.</ref> The launch of ''[[Somerset (TV series)|Somerset]]'' in March 1970, a much-publicized spin-off of NBC's ''[[Another World (TV series)|Another World]]'',  also hurt the series considerably.

The release of the film ''[[House of Dark Shadows]]'' in September of that year is also thought to have caused TV ratings to fall, possibly due to parents, attending the film with their children, discouraging their choice of television viewing material due to the amount of blood spilled on screen.<ref>Leigh Scott, Kathyrn (ed.), The Dark Shadows Companion: 25th Anniversary Collection. Pomegranate Press, 1990. pp. 177. {{ISBN|0-938817-25-6}}.</ref> Beginning in the fall of 1970, several ABC stations across the country dropped the show due to falling viewership. Within six months, ratings dropped from 7.3 to 5.3., though the ratings improved in its final weeks.<ref>Leigh Scott, Kathyrn; Jim Pierson (ed.), Dark Shadows Almanac. Pomegranate Press, 1995. pp. 104. {{ISBN|0-938817-18-3}}.</ref> The series was canceled on April 2, 1971, and replaced the following Monday with a new version of the game show ''[[Password (American game show)|Password]]''. The last minute of the final episode included a voiceover by actor [[Thayer David]] wrapping up many of the plotlines on the show.<ref>{{Citation|last=Classic Horrors|title=Dark Shadows: Final Scene (4-2-1971)|date=2017-04-02|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMZFHOKvkME |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/MMZFHOKvkME| archive-date=2021-12-11 |url-status=live|access-date=2018-01-18}}{{cbignore}}</ref>

The original cast reunited in 2003 for a special reunion play recorded for [[MPI Media Group|MPI]], and in 2004 resumed production of [[Dark Shadows (audio drama)|''Dark Shadows'' audio dramas]] for [[Big Finish Productions|Big Finish]].<ref name=RetFan11/> These dramas have been ongoing for 10 seasons.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.bigfinish.com/hubs/v/dark-shadows|title=Hubs - Big Finish Audio|website=www.bigfinish.com|access-date=2018-01-18|archive-date=2018-01-25|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180125215335/https://www.bigfinish.com/hubs/v/dark-shadows|url-status=live}}</ref>