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Thursday, June 24, 2010

ATWT: The End of Taping

With the end of June, comes the last days the cast and crew of “As the World Turns” will be at work. Hearing about and looking at pictures from the wrap party being held last Friday, June 18 and seeing this announcement on Entertainment Weekly’s site shows that the last tape day was yesterday.

Reading the comments for the person from Telenext, just made me annoyed all over again. We are really supposed to believe that they tried to continue producing ATWT after CBS canceled them. They looked into other networks, syndication and possibilities in different formats. For some reason, I am extremely incredulous about the whole thing. Perhaps it goes back to what happened when Guiding Light ended or maybe the comments made by the Vice President of Marketing at P&G. If he says they are out of soap operas, why the need for backtracking. They aren’t saying anyone is at fault, even with what has happened with the economy in the last few years. Considering how prosperous P&G is as a company that would be kind of hard to believe as an excuse. So I think a lot of the anger and blame gets tossed onto CBS. As long as CBS shows ads for P&G products or airs anything that Telenext produces (People’s Choice Awards), it would be unwise for anyone related to that company to blast the network. If fans of PGP (later Telenext) soaps boycott CBS, this may hurt P&G in the long run. If people are watching less television, they may not see their advertisements; they may buy other companies products instead.

The news of ATWT cancellation came months ago, and the last episodes seem worlds away as it will be on air in September. By then who knows where the employees of that show will be. Perhaps many of the actors as well as the crew and production people will relocate out to the west coast. Of course, since there are less shows being made on the east coast, some may get out of television all together. Thinking about how so many talented people may never perform again is one of the sad realities of cancellation. Saying goodbye to characters is difficult, but the possibility of never seeing a loved actor act again may be even worse. There is a double loss in these situations.

Getting back to other issues, instead of new productions coming to New York, they seem to be disappearing. This hurts the talent pool, and potential performer diversity, as actors from the Broadway stage can’t perform regularly on a program that doesn’t film within a short distance from the theater district. Eighteen months ago, there were four soap operas produced in NYC, and now come July, there will only be one. And no I am not optimistic enough to believe that particular show will be on for another five years.

Perhaps I should see this as the cycle of life, television shows are born, they become popular or not and eventually end. For a generation of viewers As the World Turns was the soap to watch. Any soap opera that gets a prime time spinoff must have a good amount of viewers. ATWT was at the top or close to it from almost around its premiere until sometime in the 1970s. Like most daytime serials, numerous actors got their start on the program, though some actors who have appeared were well-known for their work on the New York stage and unknown to the television audience.

My thoughts go to those who work for the show, those who love it or whose lives have been changed by it. While P&G may be out of the daytime soap business as they produce no new programs, the influence they had will not be erased.

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