Excerpt: On the surface, the news that soap operas "All My Children" and "One Life to Live" may find new life on the Web after ABC pulls the plug on them sounds like great news to fans of the genre.
But the economics of such a move wouldn't be easy. Soap operas have large casts, writing staffs, producers and lots of sets. In other words, they're not cheap. A soap can cost as much as $50 million a year to produce.
The announcement from Prospect Park -- an entertainment company whose partners include former Disney executive Rich Frank that has aspirations of creating a Web entertainment giant -- was very sparse on the details of how it would pull off moving the two soaps from broadcast television to the Internet.
Wow. It will be interesting to see if they can pull this off. You are right. Budgets are huge for soaps and doing it on-line poses the question about casting. Who stays...who goes, will storylines be limited...and how much will on-line soap viewers want to pay or not pay. I'm very intrigued because it's obvious Disney/ABC has seen how important the Save Our Soaps campaign has been. It's undeniable that there is a large market for soaps now just where to put them. I think I did see a tweet come by me, and I think it was from you Karen, that talked about making an on-line or night soap be similar to how GH's Night Shift was. Which to me would be great, but not sure if others would accept that with OLTL or AMC. I know I would with OLTL for sure, I think they're already doing it in a way. Okay that's my two cents!! I'm very excited to see what happens!
ReplyDeleteYes, we'll get AMC and OLTL-- but I look for major overhauls and major recasts and directions.
ReplyDeleteI'm excited by this but worried at the same time.
I think it is a great idea, but I'm not sure that it is feasible. It will be interesting to see what these shows are going to look like on-line. They may just be a shadow of their former self.
ReplyDeleteI really hope you won't have to pay to view the shows. I can't see paying $10 a month just to watch 2 shows I used to see for free! They could do lots of product placement like so many of the nighttime shows are doing now. We'll just have to wait and see.
ReplyDeleteIf GH were to go off network TV and go digital, I wouldn't be upset at all if it weren't even on five days a week anymore. I'd be happy it's still in production. Heck, maybe fewer episodes a week might make these shows better. Tighten up the production a bit. Spend more time per episode while saving production costs.
ReplyDeleteLots of unanswered questions, but I'm intrigued and excited by the "Prospect" of what's ahead. Basically, I'm happy AMC and OLTL fans are getting a reprieve no matter what form it takes.
Think fans of AW, ATWT, GL, etc. are pissed and wondering why their shows can't continue?
I wish that they would bring back Santa Barbara. That was the best soap ever!
ReplyDeleteSo, I do not actually believe it is likely to work.
ReplyDelete