The mid 1990s saw declining ratings. All soaps lost ground at this time, one reason being the O.J. Simpson trial, which pre-empted an entire week in the summer of 1994, a loss that was hard to recover. Between January and May 1995, "General Hospital" lost ten percent of viewership. "General Hospital" faced scrutiny for attempting ratings with story arcs "TIME" magazine called "morbid, publicity-conscious social relevance," including the recently announced HIV story involving Robin Scorpio and Stone Cates. In a 2010 interview, Riche recalls regretting having announced the story ahead of time, saying she thought "we'd made a big mistake by announcing it. We did a big press conference/announcement, and approximately 100,000 viewers tuned out almost immediately. (...) those 100,000 might still be watching today. If we had weaned them into it they might have stayed around to see what happens, and gotten involved in the story and stayed with it. (...) I imagine some tuned out because they thought it would be depressing when ultimately, thanks to Claire and her team, it was uplifting. So had we just let the storytelling play, I think we would have retained the audience." Reception on the social storylines was positive; in April 1995, Marla Hart of the "Chicago Tribune" deemed "General Hospital" as saving the soap genre. She described head writer Labine's impact: "Labine resuscitated the careers of many veteran ensemble players on this soap, forsaking the hunk and babe ratings game. And simply by being so bold in the 1990s as to give viewers storylines that pack an emotional wallop, Labine did what no one else in daytime is doing right now: returning soap to its core of drama. While the other soaps bend to sponsor pressure or obsess on producers' personal agendas, 'General Hospital' is keeping this ailing genre alive." The series won its third Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series that year.