by 
Whether it’s pro wrestling or your nana’s “stories,” CMS graduate Sam Ford is reporters’ go-to guy for understanding the nuts and bolts of TV drama. Yesterday, he was quoted again by the Boston Globe.
From To fans, Guiding Light has been more than a soap opera:
…for [Maggie] Lemelin, 36, it’s really about Nana.
“It’s just a little piece of being back in my grandmother’s living room,” the Rowley resident says.
That connection will be lost, for many viewers, after the nation’s longest-running soap succumbs to the woes that have plagued daytime dramas for years: low ratings, changed viewing habits, an audience that no longer hits advertisers’ target demographic. Soaps are in peril, but they’re also deeply loved, and draw the kind of loyalty that’s seen in fans of comic books and professional wrestling, says Sam Ford, who taught a course on soaps last year in MIT’s Comparative Media Studies program.
“I think we have an inherent love of a story that’s bigger than we are,” Ford says.
