Hey, new to the boards...just had a question. Does anyone know how the new prominence of THE VIEW will impact the future of ABC Daytime? Ever since Rosie got hired and Star Jones got canned, it seems the show has been in the news every week. And, last week, with the whole Rosie O'Donnell/Kelly Ripa/Clay Aiken controversy, the show has had more buzz than ever.

The cynic in me thinks the whole ordeal was manufactured--after all, calling Kelly Ripa's actions "homophobic" is a stretch even by crazy Rosie standards. And I can only imagine Fronsie rubbing his hands together maniacally when Kelly called into The View. Two ABC morning shows getting coverage on CNN, causing debate on blogs, exploding onto YouTube, etc.

Manufactured or not, The View has more drama than the soaps combined--and unlike the rest of ABC Daytime, has some cultural weight in the mainstream. With the shocking and seemingly orchestrated collapses of AMC and OLTL over the past few months, could this all be a harbinger of ABC DAYTIME built on THE VIEW, another talk show, maybe a reality soap, and GH? Does anyone have any insight to Frons' vision for the network?

Thanks, guys.

ABC probably loves it. Isn't The View's ratings up this season?

Hey, new to the boards...just had a question. Does anyone know how the new prominence of THE VIEW will impact the future of ABC Daytime? Ever since Rosie got hired and Star Jones got canned, it seems the show has been in the news every week. And, last week, with the whole Rosie O'Donnell/Kelly Ripa/Clay Aiken controversy, the show has had more buzz than ever.

The cynic in me thinks the whole ordeal was manufactured--after all, calling Kelly Ripa's actions "homophobic" is a stretch even by crazy Rosie standards. And I can only imagine Fronsie rubbing his hands together maniacally when Kelly called into The View. Two ABC morning shows getting coverage on CNN, causing debate on blogs, exploding onto YouTube, etc.

Manufactured or not, The View has more drama than the soaps combined--and unlike the rest of ABC Daytime, has some cultural weight in the mainstream. With the shocking and seemingly orchestrated collapses of AMC and OLTL over the past few months, could this all be a harbinger of ABC DAYTIME built on THE VIEW, another talk show, maybe a reality soap, and GH? Does anyone have any insight to Frons' vision for the network?

Thanks, guys.

I think you've hit the nail on the head. His interview currently up on mediavillage.com suggests he wishes he could replace soaps with REALITY soaps. They're cheaper and more relevant, he says.

So, yes, I'm not convinced his conception for soaps is to do away with scripted drama.

He is planning a reality soap (I guess like Real World or Starting Over) for soapnet now.

I was thinking about this just last night. The View/Live controversy seems like it COULD be orchaestrated. You never know, but let's be honest, these setups happen in Hollywood ALL THE TIME.

Two ABC morning shows getting coverage on CNN, causing debate on blogs, exploding onto YouTube, etc.

Live isn't an ABC show. It's syndicated. (It is syndicated though, by Buena Vista, which is a division of ABC.)

The View's ratings are huge now, the promos say 4 million, which would be higher than any of their soaps. Rosie has made some mistakes, but she is responsible from keeping the show from being cancelled.

ABC could use it as a platform to promote and improve their soaps, but they are clearly idiots.

Live isn't an ABC show. It's syndicated. (It is syndicated though, by Buena Vista, which is a division of ABC.)

Sorry, you're correct. That said, Live leads into The View on ABC stations in most markets...

I wonder if ABC was grooming Susan Lucci to take over a talk show to eventually replace AMC, what with the fictional "New Beginnings" and all her appearances as a View co-host. It would be a good way of keeping Lucci, the network's biggest daytime name, in the family while doing away with the baggage of AMC.

Live isn't an ABC show. It's syndicated. (It is syndicated though, by Buena Vista, which is a division of ABC.)

LOL Live airs on CBS where I live, but I've always thought of it as being more of an ABC show even though it's not really

"Live with Regis and Kelly" airs on the local CBS affiliate here in Tennessee, but (as has been pointed out) it is syndicated by Buena Vista, a Disney property (like ABC). A similar situation is "Oprah", which is distributed by King World, a division of CBS, but it aired for many years on our local NBC affiliate. Although "Live with..." and "The View" don't always air on the same affiliate in every market, they are part of the same "corporate" family.

Ultimately, I don't believe that so-called "reality soaps" work, at least not outside of MTV. The syndicated "Starting Over" (distributed by NBC Universal) lasted for two seasons but is now defunct. "The Real World" has lasted almost two decades, but I wouldn't classify it as a "soap". To me, "Real World" is almost like CBS's "Big Brother" without competition or prizes thrown in (or vice versa since "RW" came before "BB").

I'm also a skeptic of the whole "Frons wants to kill the soaps" argument. (Keep in mind I am not defending Frons, nor am I a fan of his.) If Frons' mandate is to gradually phase out the serial genre, then why would he, and by extension the network, want their soaps to bleed viewers prior to cancellation. Throughout TV history, popular series that end have seen an upsurge in viewers eager to see how loose ends will be tied up. (CBS's and later NBC's "Search for Tomorrow" is an example of viewership increasing after its cancellation was announced.) Since ABC owns the rights to its three soaps, loosing viewership translates into less revenue, which means that the network is loosing money on Daytime. While this scenario would give the network an "out" by which to dump AMC and OLTL (and I've always wondered why keep GH when you drop the others), why would the network deliberately set out to loose money. No business or corporation (which all the networks are) set out to loose revenue. Also, if ABC wanted to cancel their soaps, do they really need to manufacture a reason?

Agree with them or not (and I don't), but ABC and Frons are doing what they think is best for their soaps. Only time will tell if this strategy is effective or not.

Lastly, with NBC's rumblings of wanting to dump Daytime and now the ABC rumors, if both NBC and ABC decide to scale back or exit entirely the serial genre, the pressure will then be on CBS to do the same or make it more profitable.