Likes & Yikes 2016: Year in Review

I'll be posting my normal "Likes & Yikes" for soap opera stories in another post. Here are my ones about things that happened in soaps during 2016.

Likes: The possibility of BritBox, which is a new online service coming in 2017. They are supposed to be airing "Eastenders" and "Emmerdale", but at this point we know nothing else. Hopefully it won't be too expensive. That said if it is just recent episodes, there is less incentive to subscribe.

Yikes: All the soaps that Hulu had they no longer are airing new episodes. It is now also being a pay wall, so it is a double yikes. So until Britbox happens, there are only grey ways to watch non-US soaps. (This is extremely frustrating.)

Yikes: The Daytime Emmys were online only. This was a totally insane experience, especially during the technical awards as they were still going on after 2 am ET. It was insane, and there was no true live feed, so we had to rely on people's cellphones. Memorable, but incredibly unique. The official red carpet stuff wasn't that great, and of course there was also lag. Lag in 2016 is crazy, as it isn't the 90s.

Likes: "The Doctors" still is airing on Retro TV, and now is back to the daytime. They also air it late night, so people have two chances to watch. That said miss having it on Saturdays to tweet about, but I digress.

Yikes: Unfortunately what Pop gave us it took away. Their airing of "Days of Our Lives" has ended. So the only legal option is via NBC.com as it isn't available on demand. This is frustrating and considering it is a day behind, even more so.

Likes: CBS Daytime celebrated 30 years of the number 1 ratings in the day part. With that they had panels at Paley Center in Beverly Hills, a museum exhibition and a special on "The Talk". The best part was they didn't forget "As the World Turns" and "Guiding Light". Of course, they didn't remember the game shows that they no longer air: looking at you "Family Feud" and "Card Sharks". Unfortunately the panels with the casts of "The Bold and the Beautiful" and "The Young & the Restless" aren't available just when they were acting out the first episode of each respective show.

Likes/Yikes: While I appreciated how CBS daytime got more into the cyber realm with things like "Not Safe for Daytime", I found it frustrating how little NBC and ABC did for Days and General Hospital respectively.

Yikes: The loss of certain people in the industry. Well this is something we have to deal with in an aging genre that not everyone is going to live forever. It was rough losing both Agnes Nixon and Claire Labine within a two month period.

Likes: That we went another year without losing a soap.

Likes: That certain channels are like Hallmark, Lifetime and LMN are giving opportunities to soap performers even if the movies are either holiday themed or women in jeopardy style. At least, it gives us a chance to see actors in different roles. 



That's my highlight list for 2016 in soap opera news that had nothing to do with story, casting or production issues.