Deadline Hollywood Says AMC May Be A Goner

[EricMontreal22]

Totally agreed. While I don't believe Frons wants any soap canceled the way some claim, there's no denying what you say.

[Vee]

Oh, no, I think Frons wants the soaps to survive. He thinks he's doing the right thing for them. He just isn't.

[Kryptonite]

I agree as you look at OLTL and what they've done to turn that ship around quality wise. They act like its hard to get AMC to turn things around.

If AMC survives a cancellation then this should be a strong warning to them that it will happen for sure in 2012 if the changes at the top don't change. The executive producers need to be let go and get new writers. AMC has some great breed of actors but they've been working with bad material for years now and its catching up to them.

[JackPeyton]

A 30minute soap doesnt = half the budget. It lowers the budget, but does not cut it in half, so why would they scale it back?

Oprah is syndicated and that hour already belongs to the affiliates.

I think B&B is safe on cbs. The ad rev they pull in internationally can help offset a budget cut from CBS.

I do not see NBC creating another soap. Days is mostly safe for now because NBC as a whole has so many issues they need to sort out before they will even look at daytime.

[JackPeyton]

There is so much truth to all of this. This is exactly what is wrong with not only amc, but abc daytime. Frons. But not because he wants to kill the soaps like many claim, because he honestly somehow thinks he knows what is best and forces it.

[Vee]

OLTL has turned around a couple times in the last five years but I really don't consider right now to be some creative resurgence. It's surviving but it's mostly a disaster today. The show is largely [!@#$%^&*] and I think that is on the writers and producer as much as Frons at this particular moment; it just still has a few characters or stories that at least half-work, and whatever their failings the people involved backstage have been there for years and give a [!@#$%^&*], even when they [!@#$%^&*] up. Because the hard truth about everyone from Carlivati to Claire Labine to Guza to Malone to even my worst enemy JFP or Guza or Megan McTavish is that no one, no one gets out of daytime clean, whether they're new blood or trusted veterans; even the worst people likely had some glory day, and everyone well-intentioned fails and degrades themselves in the eyes of the audience and hurts their show in one way or another without meaning to. It happened to Hogan Sheffer, who was once brilliant at ATWT, and it happened to various Y&R wunderkinds; even Harding Lemay, once so good, could not hack it at AW in the '80s and was pushed out during a strike. This is the nature of the five-day-a-week meat grinder that is soaps, especially after the end of the '80s. Every great writer is eventually compromised.

I find what a lot of what RC has done in the last couple years at OLTL to be repugnant, but there's usually something decent and recognizable in character or a storyline per week. There are a couple stories I like right now despite everything, and I've seen OLTL go through these fits of horrible to good or great. If it was in AMC's straits I would've walked a while ago, as I still would if they cut Hillary Smith or Robin Strasser (or Erika Slezak) a la David Canary. And don't tell me that was an unfortunate side effect of the move that AMC never intended, because we all know that's bullshit. Frons was looking to cut veteran salary. In any event, this is not about OLTL, but I'm just saying, it's not some creative beacon these days.

[EricMontreal22]

I think the Canary thing is more complex than that--remember Branco's mess of a repeated story about Canary being run down and having health probs and wanting to quit a full year before he did. I know we disagree on that, but I don't think it was not somewhat Canary's own decision.

But agreed with everything else actually.

[DRW50]

I think it comes down to how a producer or a writer feels about the soap format. Those who understand soaps will get run down but a lot of that is from above, from people who don't know soaps. Frons has never understood or cared about understanding the soap format. That's why he probably gets on fine with Guza, who never has either.

I think people who respect and know how to write for the soap format are more likely to know what has to be done to save it. But that's gone now. Many of those in soaps, like Sheffer, JFP, Guza, have open contempt for daytime and it shows up onscreen year after year.

[SFK]

I wish we could get something like the soap opera equivalent of the Black State of the Union on C-Span, a couple hours devoted to just calling soap folks out on their [!@#$%^&*], loudly and publicly. An open forum on the who, what, when, why, and how soaps are in the sad state that they're in with plenty of well-educated participants who aren't on any soap's payroll and have nothing to lose by telling it like it t-i-is. If it was all laid out, if we knew the God's honest truth about hands being tied, creativity quashed, PTB having to kowtow to even bigger PTB above their heads, I think fans would get so much from that and airing the dirty laundry might bring about change through, yes, shame. The sad thing is, I feel like at least a NYTimes magazine article in this vein where soap people just spill it all will happen once ALL of the soaps are cancelled, WAY too little too late. As of right now I'm left with the impression that soaps are run by a bunch of out of touch people with bad taste and no vision, coming from the very top trickling on down. We got to do better.

[DRW50]

I would settle for an article which talks frankly and openly about why the soaps have turned so harshly against women and minorities. I don't believe it's just down to angry fan letters or fear of conservative viewers.

[EricMontreal22]

And while I know ATWT fans don't think much of her--to think when Frons was hired we almost got Felicia Minei Behr as head of ABC Daytime instead... Sigh.

[EricMontreal22]

Some of it at least is simply being out of touch. For a LONG time now soap execs have thought that to attract younger viewers they need to focus more on young viewers. Although--as late 70s/early 80s AMC proved in spades with its huge college fanbase--every younger soap viewer I've met has stated how much they like the mix of multiple generations, the familial aspects, etc. Yet it's been getting worse and worse for 20 years now, soap execs dont' seem to clue in that if ratings are slipping, just focusing more on pretty, white, half naked teens does not bring them back up. Seriously some of the lessons that you think they would have learned by now, and haven't, are just mind boggling.

Agreed. We get little bits of hearsay and gossip--like apparently Broderick wouldn't return as a full time HW if it was under Frons' guidance, and we actually got a quote from Josh Griffith about Frons interfering too much in his stories when he left OLTL the last time--but we don't get much else, and I assume that's cuz even at the soon to be canceled shows, the people involved want to still be seen as valid prospects to work in the soap community. So like you said it prob won't be till they're all dead.

[Kryptonite]

You know what I can't even truly answer the 30 minute question b/c I heard it mention on this board and other sites so I was just thinking of B&B and how well that show does with the 30 minute format overseas. The only real benefit I see in the 30 minute idea is giving more space back to the affiliates or ABC slotting something there that can be 30 minutes like that talk show.

I reread my post and I failed to mention in there that Oprah is a syndicator and ABC doesn't operate her hour but it just airs on ABC affiliates. With that being said the slot will either be kept by the affiliates or ABC will pick it up which I highly doubt. There's no way affiliates will let the network operate that hour without them giving the AMC hour in return.

That's true about B&B but I just don't trust CBS, especially if B&B continues its downward spiral in the ratings. B&B as a soap is safe but airing on CBS I don't know. It's probably the only soap out there with a chance of landing on a different network.

You're right about NBC a new soap is a long shot but it wouldn't hurt them either to try it out.

[EricMontreal22]

Nearly every soap writer has gotten run down I think--it's a pretty unforgiving format, but I actually agree with you. For as much as some people were against Gottlieb joining OLTL as a soap EP, in hindsight from her interviews and work, she seemed to get (at least after a little while) what were the strengths and appeal of soaps while trying some new things. It wasn't a case of acting like the term soap opera was dirty.

[Vee]

Guza grew up in soaps, in GH and others; I think he knows how they work very well. He's just grown to disdain them, I think, especially following his brief "heyday" doing slasher flicks in the early '80s (Prom Night is mostly crud, but the Canadian slasher Curtains is awesome). When he took over in the '90s that show was brilliant, and in his best years I felt it rivaled primetime, because he knew what he was doing on every level. Even today you have various Daytime Confidential podcasters and others excusing years of [!@#$%^&*] on GH on the basis of the show's incredible dialogue and breakdown staff - which has kept it out of the hole for years, I might add - or on the basis of some story arcs which are well constructed in theory but do not play well or fair onscreen. Guza can be talented. He just has become a joke to everyone but himself. And did I fear what was coming when the firing rumor about him came out? Yes. Because bottom line, Guza has decades invested in this show and knows it inside and out even as he wrecks it. I would still be happy to have him gone, but I seriously feared another Megan McTavish scenario, which was as jarring a change from the Riche/Labine/Guza era as you can get. Guza is an example of someone who knows daytime, could help daytime, but has grown to loathe daytime.