With the ABC soaps going into freefall with some not so great storylines IMO, I was wondering about AW here....

I understand the 90 minute episode format wasn't successful and they lost the entire Matthews family in the late 70s. Still, from the episodes I've seen on AOL and **** recently, I enjoyed them very much so. I've heard 1980-1986 were among the worst years, beginning with Rachel's trial for Mitch's murder all the way up to the Sin Stalker(which I loved!) I didn't really see the show during those years until the summer of '84, with the David Thatcher murder mystery at its peak. I watched faithfully till the mid 90s.

I know there were some weird moments back then with AW sucking up actors from AMC(Nina, Greg etc) as recasts for major characters. Felicia at one point was the ultimate diva of nothing, to tell the truth I didn't like the character until they paired her with Mitch. But the show continued on until they fired Carmen Duncan. To this day I hate her exit, but it wasn't as bad as oh say the exits of Ryan(murdered), Brigit(murdered), Frankie(murdered), Gabe(murdered), Carl(murdered), and whoever else was killed off in a digusting fashion

Let's not even go and talk about what happened with Justine. I realize Victoria Wyndham really defended the character but it put a 180 on her acting style. How else does one explain the sudden British accent???

I've heard the argument that AW was improving its last few months. Not in my book. I know Lumina was JER's idea(he was a consultant for NBC at the time), but look what happened with finale?

I don't know if I can answer everything for you. I will say that it was not in the late 70's that the show lost all the Matthews family. It was into the 80's, but they did try to bring back Alice and Russ at one point but it was too late.

Pat stayed in a key role for the first couple of years in the 80's, but then she left town and the Matthews just drifted out. And then in the end there weren't any around. The death of Mary Matthews is what started it, and then of course Alice left town in about 1979. John was killed (he was married to a Matthews) in 1979 too. Later Susan left. So they were heavily weakened in the 80's, but they did not fully leave the show until the 80's.

Many people say the show was falling apart and was bad from 1980-86 but those years were some of my favorites. I even loved them more than some of the last years. At this time AW still had all 3 social classes represented - something that in later years it lacked. I esp. loved the pairing of Sally and Catlin - esp. with Thomas Ian Griffith and Mary Page Keller. I feel there were some good stories during this time, but as you said some don't see it that way. One of the biggest things that hurt them in the 80's was that their lead-in was doing very poorly. Days got it's lowest ratings ever I think in 1980, and AW's ratings that had been fairly good even during the 90 minute format and really rose during the St. Croix finale to the Janice/Mac/Mitch/Rachel story - but they fell big time during the latter part of 1980.

I can say that even during what some call it's worst time, the show was still much better than most shows on today. As I said at this time the show had all 3 classes represented. And the poorer citizens were represented that way. Ada even though she was related to the Cory's by marriage still lived at that time in a modest home. Larry and Clarice lived in a small apartment. Today on the soaps they all have these big fancy apartments, and at these big parties even the poorer citizens come dressed so fancy that you wonder where in the world they got the money. Also during the 1980 to 1986 range saw the show so integrated so wonderfully. They had some of the best African-American actors at one time - probably the most talented African-American set of actors ever assembled at one time on a show. At one time they had Morgan Freeman, Jackee Harry, Petronia Paley, Michelle Shay, Howard Rollins Jr., and James Pickens Jr. all among the cast - just about at the same time. And they were featured. Again at the same time, you saw the different classes even among them. And you saw them at work too.

The show was just really good, and at times was better than other times. I think the biggest thing that hurt them is the changes in focus that came about with each new produer and each new head writer. I think P&G did a great disservice in changing them so often. They also had to continually deal with some of the things that the "great" Paul Rauch and Harding Lemay did. I loved their time on the show, but some of the mistakes they made (firing Virginia Dwyer, George Reinholt, and Jacqueline Courtney, killing John Randolph, expanding to 90 minutes) hurt the show and it just never recovered from them. And then after the show had a resurgance and focused again on the Frames and Corys while incorporating the new families of Love and McKinnon, the next writer and producer dwindled the families again, and switched focus. And then Phelps made the big mistake of killing off Frankie. The show just never recovered from it and then later the Justine thing hurt big time.

I will disagree with you about the end. I loved the last year or so of the show. I felt it was really gaining momentum and turning itself around again. It was just a little too late I guess. Still I would gladly take it over most shows today.

I loved Another World in the 90's. I started watching around 94.

I loved the 90s as well. I was only in my early teens when it ended but I thought it was better than anything else. Although critics say it wasn't as good as the glory days, it sure was better than the crap some soaps are showing these days.

I loved the 90s as well. I was only in my early teens when it ended but I thought it was better than anything else. Although critics say it wasn't as good as the glory days, it sure was better than the crap some soaps are showing these days.

I watched from 95 until the end and thought AW was wonderful. I even liked the Justine story. I don't know. AW had a very nice, friendly feel to it. Characters were always having lunch and having a good time, the couples were top-notch and so was the acting. AND THEN THEY KILLED OFF FRANKIE. After that, the show lost somthing and although some people say it was getting better at the end, I think by 99 AW flatlined.

I was actually surprised that P&G decided to cancel the show in 1999 b/c I thought that AW was starting to rebound after the craziness that ensued post-Frankie's death. I think P&G realized what an awful mistake they made. The show had just lost something following Frankie's murder, but after Phelps left, I felt like the show was getting back to being good again. It definitely did start to boomerang, as opposed to GL which has never seemed to recover since it killed off Maureen Bauer. The last 4 years of AW were actually really good, and IMO it was better than GL and ATWT.

I still think that if P&G hadn't decided to cancel the show that NBC would be a very viable rival for ABC and CBS. I'm not sure of the ratings. I know that P&G soaps never have the best demos, but I don't think that AW's ratings were that awful in comparison to the other P&G soaps.

A lot of people say that NBC wanted the show gone too, since it didn't really fit w/ the network's younger demos. Still, the ultimate decision came from P&G. I'm sure that NBC wasn't exactly fighting for the show or offering to buy it from them (like CBS tried to do w/ ATWT and GL a few years back)

There were always rumours about how P&G wanted to drop one of its soaps, and I really thought that they'd axe ATWT first, then GL, and AW would be the last to go. I think what saved ATWT was Broderick's tenure as HW, but then when AW was cancelled, they took all of the backstage figures from AW and put them on ATWT (like Goutman and Laiman), which made absolutely no sense. I understood why they'd give Goutman the EP position since he is a very talented EP, but Laiman never should have been given the HW position, especially since it meant kicking Broderick (who was the saving grace of the show at the time) to the curb.

The sad thing is that, even at its worst, AW was better than a lot of what we see on soaps today. If it hadn't been cancelled, I think it would continue to fair well with the other soaps today. It's just one of those "could of, would of, should of" situations. I'm sure that P&G doesn't have any regrets about terminating the show, but I really do think that NBC is kicking itself for getting rid of the show (or probably Santa Barbara and/or Sunset Beach).

The last couple of years with Anne Heche as Vicky/Marley were the best. The show hung on and did good stuff through the early 90s (Jake/Paulina, Vicky/Grant/Ryan triangle, Julian McMahon as Ian) but when Jake "died" and Tom Eplin left the show for a while, AW took a turn for the worse and never really recovered.

The last year wasn't the worst year. I thought the show may have had a chance at getting better and was really disappointed when it was cancelled.

Actually, it was NBC that cancelled AW. P&G tried to salvage the show by moving it somewhere else. From everything I've read, P&G were thisclose to working a deal with ABC to move AW to ABC in 1999, but it all fell through at the last minute. I'm thinking that ABC wanted to buy AW outright, but P&G wouldn't sell the show to them lock stock and barrell. I do know that when Linda Dano signed onto ABC at the conclusion of AW, the original plan was for her to play Felicia Gallant on OLTL, but P&G wouldn't sell ABC the rights to the character, which is how they came about reviving the Gretal Rae Cummings character (a shortlived OLTL character Dano had played back in the late 1970s).

^^

Okay, that's good to know. I always thought that NBC was the one who decided to get rid of it, but then there were people who said that it was definitely P&G, so that's what I started to think since P&G is the one who makes the ultimate decision, since they really had no other choice. NBC just refused to give them a time slot. But it makes sense b/c I really didn't think that P&G would get rid of AW first, which is obvious since they moved ATWT to the AW's studio and brought a lot of AW people over to the show. That's why I always thought that P&G would rather see ATWT or GL go than AW. I also know that they are rather adamant about not selling their soaps to the networks. I remember that CBS tried and they refused it.

I really don't know how AW would have faired on ABC. Still, I think NBC realizes they made a mistake, since obviously the network can never build up to a 3 soap network ever again.

Did P&G flat out refuse to sell or was it that they priced their soaps out of the market?

P&G has sold soaps in the past. I know they sold 'The Brighter Day' to CBS late in that series run. I think it was CBS who then moved the production of that series to California, pretty much killing the show (a huge chunk of the cast refused to relocate, necessitating the writing off or recasting of most of the characters). I think P&G has sold a couple of other series (long, long ago) but I can't come up with the names off the top of my head.

CBS owning its own soaps has *never* been a good idea. 'Love of Life', 'The Secret Storm', and 'Love is a Many Splendored Thing' ring any bells? I think they also owned 'Where the Heart Is' (but I could be mistaken). NBC bought 'The Doctors' from Colgate-Palmolive late in that series' run, and we all know what happened there (grave robbing, anti-aging serium, cancellation, anyone?). I know NBC has part ownership in 'Passions' (which, I presume, is the only real reason that show is still on the air) and I think they owned part of 'Generations'. I know they originally owned a portion of 'Santa Barbara', but I'm not sure if that ownership continued or not. Not sure if they continued part-ownership once the Dobsons sold to New World (worst mistake ever on their part) or not.

P&G, despite some bungling over the years (the not-so-great 1972 soap shuffle, anyone? even though I'm sure it seemed like a good idea at the time), is usually pretty good and protective of its soaps. In fact, the last soap I can remember P&G actually cancelling of their own accord was 'The Edge of Night', but they really didn't have much choice there. The show wasn't anywhere close to turning a profit and they were losing money *big time*. True, it had a rather cushey timeslot right after 'General Hospital', but by that point, most affiliates had stopped airing network programming at 4pm. I think less than 1/2 of the ABC affiliates were carrying 'Edge' and even most of the ones that were were airing at odd times. You can't get ratings if no one can watch because it isn't airing and you can't get ad revenue if you don't have ratings. Kinda hard to imagine that between 6/26/83 & 12/31/84 ABC had SIX soap operas on the air.

IIRC, Susan Lee, the then head of NBC Daytime, ultimately cancelled AW. JERk had been commissioned sometime in late 1997/early 1998 to write a bible for the show that would be known as Passions. NBC gave Passions the greenlight and said there was only space on the net for 3 shows - and they currently had 3 shows: DOOL, AW and SUBE (3 great shows IMO) i.e. one show would have to go.

For a while, which show to get the axe was uncertain. While DOOL was still the powerhouse in ratings under Sussman-Morina, Corday was rumoured to be miffed with NBC/Susan Lee over JER leaving DOOL and other contractual issues. Once those were settled, the axe shifted to either to AW or SuBe. Lee played her cards close to her chest (in the public domain at least), playing the 2 shows off each other (and probably playing hardball with both P&G and Spelling around the boardroom table to get concessions).

Maybe someone has the exact date of the announcement of cancellation of AW, but the show ended in June 1999 and announcement was barely a few months before it. And of course the kicker was SuBe was cancelled by the end of the year anyway. I think it was Lee's intention to get rid of both shows all along. Lee also cancelled Leeza in 1999 as well.

I also remember P&G made big revenue from AW in Canada as ratings had remained strong throughout the 90's there.

I think the announcement came roughly around the time of the show's 35th anniversary. I remember talk about when the cast first heard about the cancellation. The very first scene taped after learning of the cancellation was a scene revolving around Gary & Josie in the graveyard discussing the loss of her baby with Cameron.

Found the dates of cancellation:

AW: Cancellation announced : 12 April 1999

Last Film date : 25 May 1999

Last air date : 25 June 1999

Got this from here

Also found an interview at the same website with Susan Lee

I enjoyed reading everyones comments. What year of the show are the playing on soapnet? I catch it several times a week and I really enjoy it.