ABC soaps won't continue online

[Mysterious Benefactor]

From Variety:

ABC soaps won't continue online
Prospect Park abandons 'OLTL,' 'AMC'
By Andrew Wallenstein

Prospect Park is abandoning a plan to keep long-running ABC soaps "One Life to Live" and "All My Children" alive by moving them online.

The company issued a statement Wednesday confirming it had pulled the plug. "It is with great disappointment that we are suspending our aspirations to revive 'One Life to Live' and 'All My Children' via online distribution."

Prospect Park, led by Jeff Kwatinetz and Rich Frank, had been working since July to start The Online Network as a home for the canceled soaps. But after months of mostly negative speculation, the complexities of keeping the production on par with its TV scale proved to be too much.

"The contractual demands of the guilds, which regulate our industry, coupled with the program's inherent economic challenges ultimately led to this final decision," according to the statement.

Thus ends a last-ditch effort that would have breathed new life into two series whose demise has been lamented by many soap-opera fans. However, ABC and other networks who have canceled soaps made the difficult decisions to end them citing increasingly unjustifiable expensive production costs in the face of declining auds.

The migration of these soaps to digital platforms will leave questions as to whether new media represents the haven for canceled series its often made out to be. However, just last week Netflix did manage to put together a deal to bring Fox comedy "Arrested Development" back on air, albeit years after its three-season run came to an end.

Producers for "OLTL," which is scheduled to end its run in January 2012, may be left with some creative rejiggering to do now that its second life online isn't happening. Sources indicated that the series was to end on a cliffhanger in order to whet appetites for its continuation online; now those narrative strands will likely be wrapped up on ABC instead.

Since "AMC" ended its historic run in September, ABC has introduced lower-cost talk show "The Chew" to its daytime lineup. Once "OLTL" signs off, it will be replaced by a second talk show, "The Revolution."

[michael c]

i hadn't regularly followed either show in years...

but i was home a couple days last week and the show's that have replaced the old soaps..."talk" and "lifestyle"...are completely disposable garbage.

beneath contempt actually.

[Annie]

Thats  too bad  always  something good  to  watch  they take  off .
                    Love  Anne

[David]

I read a story which reported that AMC, at the end, was pulling in 6 million online viewers, which is how many online viewers Days of Our Lives gets. Y & R gets 11 million online viewers. I'm at a loss to understand why the networks can't generate revenue from so many online viewers.

In 10 years, DS DVDs & You Tube clips may be all that's left of soaps.

[Brian]

I was so hoping to watch OLTL on internet...but now i can mourn its demise, much as I did DS in 1971, and move on...

[Uncle Roger]

While I am disappointed to hear this, I can't say that I'm all that surprised.  Prospect Park apparently bit off far more that they could chew.  Ilene Kristen, Roxy on OLTL, said that there had been problems all along.

[michael c]

the logistics of putting together a daily serialized show...with it's dozens of characters, multiple writers, numerous sets, and armies of costumers, hairdressers, makeup artists and all of the technical people(cameras and lighting and sound and special affects)plus the producers and their staffs has to be daunting to say the least. and expensive no matter how many people are watching.

the show's that have replaced the soaps are awesome in their cheapness...one cheap, crappy set. a couple of annoying hosts. a studio filled with an audience of shrill idiots that come to it for FREE.

it's unfortunately hard to beat the economic of that.

and unlike a soap that can take years to gather a regular following these types of shows don't require any investment on the part of the viewer or the network for that matter. if they're poorly rated they can just get replaced with something else of the same genre.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

and unlike a soap that can take years to gather a regular following these types of shows don't require any investment on the part of the viewer or the network for that matter. if they're poorly rated they can just get replaced with something else of the same genre.

And that's the saddest part of all. 

[quentin-channing]

Prospect Park never got the serious funding it needed to move forward. In the beginning they put their hand out to people like the soap mags and ex-soap stars like Martha Byrne in order to get buzz and possible casting coups but after that initial contact there was silence for months. Not a surprise to hear that they've abandoned it.

I am a faithful Y&R viewer for over 20 years. Watching online does not help, it only benefits the fans as a convenience. The networks simply won't abandon the old ratings model where Nielsen is the be all and end all. Online views do not count towards official rating stats unless the exact same commercial content is included in that show.

P&G used to support their soaps because they had execs that cared about soaps. Those folks left and P&G dropped the soaps. ABC does not care about soaps. They think everyone who watches them sits around all day in their moo moo eating bon bons. Meanwhile the new programming they have is no different than what we've been getting from The View and basic cable channels.

[David]

Soap Central now reports that Prospect Park is talking to overseas investors.
At last, a real life soap about soaps!

[Mysterious Benefactor]

 Interesting - particularly when One Life To Live is big overseas...

[David]

Oprah Winfrey at first said no to producing & airing AMC & One Life on OWN--but O's network is tanking--her top rated Rosie Show barely pulls in a million viewers.
If Prospect Park produces/pays for the soap production costs, it might behoove Oprah to air them.