ABC Axing AMC AND One Life To Live

[Jess 1110]

I think we knew one of the two soaps that weren't "General Hospital" were going, but I don't think we expected BOTH to go. All My Children will end in September; One Life To Live ends in January. AMC is replaced by a show about food, OLTL's replacement is something about life changes. You know, the types of shows you'd see on Lifetime.

 

If you work at an ABC O&O or an affiliate, I feel sympathy for you due to the impending volume of angry, ranting phone calls and letters.

 

Full info here at Deadline Hollywood.

[Vlad 276]

Its a bit ridiculous that they are axing both shows. I'm especially surprised that they are canceling AMC which has kept going strong. I guess Soap Operas are becoming a thing of the past now...

[abric 157]

So many soaps have disappeared in the last decade or so. They are a dying breed. But I feel really bad for All My Children and One Life to Live. Especially all the people who work in front and behind the scenes. First NBC (Another World, Passions, Sunset Beach), then CBS (Guiding Light and As The World Turns), now ABC. It's sad.

[WXmanTim 88]

...AMC which has kept going strong...

 

According to the article, not so much. It's been hitting all-time lows in the "key" 18-49 female demo.

 

Still a surprise they're cancelling them both.

 

I don't expect the two new shows will fare well. I don't find them particularly appealing just from reading the descriptions.

[justin2kx 229]

This news no doubt futher finalizes the reason Disney pulls the plug on SoapNet in January 2012.

 

Also on the sidenote: ABC Cancelled "Port Charles" in 2003.

 

BTW: Sad to think about the era coming to an end where an ABC affiliate (i.e: WABC) has had AMC, OLTL, GH and including Oprah of course together 1pm-5pm ET for 25 years and excluding Oprah, the three soaps for 41 years. Amazing run nonetheless. A schedule like that either way would never be seen again.

 

Let's face it, It's the kind of schedule you know by heart whether you watch any of them, all of them, or neither. Although while our parents may have watched the soaps, when we were kids, we watched cartoons and game shows of course (the late great FOX kids, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, etc.)

 

Yes, HulkieD, the ABC affiliates across america will receives fits from angry fans for cancelling their soaps, when it's the network itself that made the decision.

[TheOneManHerd 553]

It would be one thing if they were just handing over the extra time to the affiliates, as NBC did, but the shows they are putting in instead sound so pedestrian. When CBS replaced As The World Turns with a blatant "The View" rip-off, I thought that was pretty dumb and uninspired, but this? I mean, that "Transformation" show sounds like pure, unadulterated horse hockey.

 

Well, it's about the money, Lebowski. And networks are leaving scripted en masse, and soaps are not only scripted, but a hour show every weekday requires at least 10 times the work as a half-hour weekly sitcom, and soaps don't go to reruns often either. It's the lasting effects of both the writer's strike a few years back, and a public looking more and more to the internet for entertainment. And folks, it's only going to get worse. Because the networks think that people will watch anything, no matter how cheap or how bad it is. If only they knew that it's only hastening their demise.

[gameshowguy2000 1]

Well, at least CBS replaced GL with something better: a game show--that being the Wayne Brady-hosted LMAD (he's not Monty, but at least he's good). I was hoping that would happen with ATWT, but it didn't. There were plans for a Pyramid series to replace ATWT, but those didn't go through after the pilots were done.

[Jess 1110]

Yes, HulkieD, the ABC affiliates across america will receives fits from angry fans for cancelling their soaps, when it's the network itself that made the decision.

I assume that's why WPVI has been directing viewers to what is apparently an ABC-run phone number to complain - so people don't dial NEWSSIX to bitch!

 

And as for the replacements - they sound weak. Like, real weak "mid day on TLC" fodder, which makes me think they're just getting the cancellations out of the way now and then going for more lucrative programming (like, say, Couric) for 2012. The daytime head seems to deliberately want to avoid the guessing games that went on when CBS cancelled their soaps. I just think they'd have had better results if they gave an hour to ABC News or put a game show in there, but I don't think the current situation is more than a stopgap.

 

And yeah, I think it's a daytime sea change, but the end started in 1994 when OJ drove that white bronco. Soap operas spilled over to real life. But it's also due to a number of alternatives - if you're a busy housewife and you have a kid in the house, you're not watching Soaps, you're watching Barney. (That's why Disney found it more lucrative to run a preschool channel rather than a SoapNet.)

[SFTV 484]

Erika Kane ran out of men, sheesh and they just moved from NY to LA. smh waste of money and everything.

[stevieboy247 42]

For some reason I now have a feeling that one of these days either NBC or ABC will become the first network without a daytime soap since both networks only have one daytime drama left.

 

Oh, how times change.

[Vlad 276]

For some reason I now have a feeling that one of these days either NBC or ABC will become the first network without a daytime soap since both networks only have one daytime drama left.

 

Oh, how times change.

 

Well I don't think GH and DAYS will be going anywhere anytime soon considering that their ratings are strong. In fact GH has been in the top 3 for years since it's incarnation not so sure about DAYS.