 With Alden as head writer, the show lost about two million viewers (most of the loss occurred in 2004 when Alden co-wrote the show with longtime "Y&R" scribe and producer John F. Smith), but all soap operas during that period experienced a similar scale of massive audience erosion.She quit "The Young and the Restless" in late 2006, and was then hired by Brian Frons, president of ABC Daytime, to consult on its serials "All My Children", "General Hospital" and "One Life to Live".She left ABC Daytime after declining "All My Children"'s head writer position in Spring 2007, and was hired by Bradley Bell in May 2007 to be an associate head writer for another CBS Daytime drama, "The Bold and the Beautiful".