With All My Children and One Life to Live cancelled, there has been speculation that General Hospital is next on the chopping block. This week TMZ said it looks to be the case with the Katie Couric news. Here are my thoughts.
Getting rid of their entire soap line up in under an 18-month period is a risky move for ABC to make. Of course, it looks like the network may be willing to take the chance. If all the new shows are a lot cheaper to produce than soap operas, the bottom line will look better regardless of the ratings.
They have the added benefit that if any program flops people aren’t going to be as upset. While people may like some of the hosts of the new shows (The Chew and The Revolution --- working title), or Katie Couric, do most people have decades worth of loyalty that is doubtful. I’ve enjoyed Tim Gunn for years as an early adopter of Project Runway, but due to this situation, I won’t be watching that show. If focus groups asked if people like him, I can completely understand why he got a positive response. I like Wayne Brady and have for years, but I don’t watch Let’s Make a Deal either.
For me shows like this are disposable television these are the type of things you watch when you have the time or inclination, but not the kind that you need to watch day to day. There is no long-term continuity, so if you miss a week or a month, it doesn’t matter. If something insane and extremely would occur, most likely it will go viral anyway, so no point in clogging up the DVR.
If ABC wants to change their image, the cancellation of soap operas is a step in that direction. Of course, the last network who thought to do something major on this scale was NBC. That experiment putting Jay Leno at 10 PM eastern five nights a week was an unmitigated disaster. They still are looking to strike gold in primetime, but it is possible they finally hit it with their new reality show The Voice.
When it comes to what we can do as viewers, I have no freaking clue, as I don’t know if anything will work. That’s a sad place to be, but that’s where I am at this juncture. There is nothing wrong with letting ones voice be heard, but if ABC has their mind set to have no more daytime soap operas, how can their minds be changed? If anyone out in the universe has an idea, I’d be very curious.
Saving the soap opera genre generically that other networks don’t follow suit is a possibility, but for some that isn’t enough. CBS is already down to two shows, and NBC has just one. They seem to be going out of the soap opera business too. At this point, I wonder if we will even get an outlier like The Price is Right had been until CBS added Let’s Make a Deal or if there won't be any soaps at all.
Hopefully we will know either way, though if General Hospital would be going off the air more than a year from now, I doubt we will hear anything yet. The only thing I do know is regardless of what is airing or not, soaps live on in those who love them.
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