OLTL: Erika Slezak newsletter-will it get Higley gone from OLTL?

[SlezaksOLTL]

The Erika Slezak was on the cover of SOW-with a pretty trashy title "Emmy Winner trashes show"

Inside the SOW news section it has Erika Slezak Sounds off and blasts HW Higley. Obviously SOW used their words to sell mags, but since her newsletter is everywhere online and talked about all over, will this possibly be the beginning of the end of Higley? Because shouldn't ABCD and Frons pay attention to this? They wouldn't fire La Slezak and keep Higley over her would they?

OLTL so very much needs a new head writer, the show is getting worse and worse. Could this whole newsletter stuff lead to Higley finally being gone? AMC fired McT, why isn't OL firing Higley?

[KMan101]

I would hope to hell Frons knows better than to ever fire Erika Slezak. The outcry would be HUGE.

[psychofan]

Just thinking about the fan uproar if Frons fired Erika is frightening...

[Shanay]

I really don't think Frons would care about fan outcry, if he did the shows would be in better shape. I don't think that Erika has anything to worry about, she is not the first star on that show to speak out.

[greekgoddess]

I think Erika Slezak would be gone before Dena Higley.

No matter how much she destroys this show, she is still HEAD writer. I'm beginning to think that BOTH Frons and Higley are untouchable.

[sungrey]

Put it this way... when Dan Gauthier was fired from OLTL, everyone spoke out in his defense and it didn't help. Even Erika, who was notoriously tight-lipped about storylines and what she thought... all I can say about this story is wow. Go, Erika!

[Addison Montgomery]

Erika's job isn't in danger (it's not like she took a gun and blasted Higley with it, at least not literally )

But I doubt Frons will take this as his cue to fire Higley. The whole AMC lot started complaining in 2005, and it took him almost two years to get rid of Megan McTavish.

[Dr. Jay S.W.]

I do think Higley will get canned before Slezak. She will never be fired from OLTL unless JER takes over, of course. A lot of people on boards bring up Dan Gauthier getting fired for speaking out. I love Dan, but he is no Erika Slezak. He is not a damn near original cast member and he certainly does not have 6 emmy's. Its a whole different situation. I am standing by my prior statement stating that Higley would be leaving this year. I think SOW, and especially Hinsley, are mouthpieces of Frons. I think they collaborated on the story, and Frons will play innocent, when he fires Higley. Frons is behind that article, I bet. He just doesn't want to seem like a bastard, and he needs a fallman. He can tell Higley, " the mags have been complaining about you, everyone knows Erika hates you, Im sorry Dena, but your fired"....something like that.

[ZaraB]

Well, it is deserving of it's own thread -- but I am not certain enough about the posting/quoting rules for magazines. In SOD, Carolyn Hinsey basically devotes an article to a 'Jesus' talk about soaps and contract statuses in the network's defense. It isn't hard to pinpoint ABC, with OLTL in particular as whom she is defending. It's appalling -- it's as if she's been mesmerized by ABC PR.

In her parting shot, she suggests that if you really want to see change on soaps, get yourself on a focus group. Her ignorance is glaring. I have no doubt she is double their age limit.

[GrayG]

Zara, I read that in SOD, and quite frankly I was highly insulted on many levels from it. First off I am an educated person, with post-graduate work, I don't like being talked down to like someone with no mind of my own and someone with no intelligence. I hate that TIIC assume we soap viewers are all dumb idiots with no education and no intelligence or ability to think on our own. Secondly, I fall into the low end of the demos (I am 24), so for them to say, hey, if you like a vet who is over 40, forget it, we are only going to feature teens. Their mentality is, don't like what we are shoving your way, then too bad. The worst part of that column was the end sentence when she wrote that you shouldn't complain if a vet is only going to be on a couple times here and there, but to not stop watching because that is the way it it. Well, if they put Erika Slezak on recurring, why on earth would I want to watch if the whole point of OLTL for me, at the moment because of bad writing, is to want to watch a 6-time Emmy winner. Hinsey says 'don't stop watching, just accept it as is'. She assumes we will invest no matter what the big trainer Frons has in mind for his vision. They don't seem to get that it doesn't work that way. It is our choice to turn the show off, and if soaps fail and get canceled it will be their own idiotic mentality and egoistic triffleness that set them there because they wouldn't in their stubbornness even listen to what viewers want. Focus grouping every single little thing on a show is pretty much the perfect way to get a show canceled, as there will be no pay off, no extremes only boring down the middle nothingness. Certainly not a way to entertain any of the masses no matter the age. Also, the ageist views put out from ABCD and Hinsey only prove that they don't get anything about soaps, which are to be multi-generational. If you eliminate all of the one end of the spectrum, which for them is anyone over the age of 40, then there won't be any reason for pretty much the majority of the demo audience to watch. I am sure most of the female audience have no desire to see teenage angst in high school any more than teens do because both groups are trying to escape from the daily grind and their entertainment is not providing it. What I hate most about ABC daytime is this egoistic view that their training is the only way to go and if we viewers can't accept it, then just shut up and watch. They forget that we viewers have to power to turn it off. If they want to blame us viewers for killing daytime, then so be it, but it all falls back on their egos in their quest to focus group a show to death.

This also tells me that I may as well not invest in OLTL ever again, because if they are blasting Erika Slezak for speaking up on the horrible writing on the show, and focus groups are the only thing used for their storylines, or events as Slezak's words so perfectly put, then there is no reason for me to spend time watching or investing at all. I will tune out completely if they dump Slezak over this and never give storyline to Viki again, because the show just sucks way too much to want to watch. The writing is insulting and stupid all the time for all the characters, it just isn't entertaining, an escape or worth my valuable time. I am barely hanging on as is with the awfulness that is OLTL now, they fire Slezak on top of that, well, forget counting me as a viewer, I will take my demo elsewhere then.

[Jess]

I read that article. Hinsley is OLTL's little asskiss. So she got an interview with ME after she kissed his butt. Who will show up in her interview next week?? Should she ever write a credible article, no one will care because she is such a Fronsie ho. I was shocked that she mentioned Anna Lee. Tell me how much would it have cost for ABC to keep that woman on a token contract?? Yes her health was frail, but it wasn't like she was bankrupting ABC. Pure human decency would have said keep her on a small contract and let her life end in dignity. Not ABC, they are jerks. Keep in mind, NBC never never did that to Frances Reid (is that her name?). They kept that wonderful woman on contract until it was her decision to end it. They acknowledged her contributions to the show even years after she was the dominate influence on the show. There is much to dislike about NBC, but there are little things that count too.

And one other comment, she mentioned that the magazine had made the decision not to report on a soap character who was a wife beater and was served with papers on the set. Why not CH? Do you thinks fans should admire wife-beaters? CH isn't a journalist, she is a whore for the industry.

I hope when CH is very old and the world views her as worthless, she isn't treated in the same manner as she now advocates treating others. Right now CH is just worthless and she isn't treated that poorly.

Now on to the topic. Jay, man I hope you are right. Higley does need to go. I don't think Erika will get canned. Instead they will pull the same crap they did in SOW and hacks like CH will let that happen.

[GrayG]

Using Anna Lee as an example was kind of low, IMO.

And just who is Hinsey targeting this whole thing about? Erika Slezak speaking out? Phil Carey? Julia Barr? Just who?

I sure hope Higley is gone, and soon. Erika should be able to outlast that awful non-writer.

[Jess]

Gray, I think it was Phil Carey, but that is just a guess. I agree with you that using Anna Lee as an example was low.

[Drew]

what did she say exactly?

[juniorz1]

RE: The title of this thread

NO WAY!

Now if it were Easton b!tching, Frons might listen. But ABCD doesn't give a BarrWalkerFrancisWagner about Erika Slezak.