The thing is with Hershey would they really be a good fit for the replacement shows? The Chew may want more high end (ie not junk food)...and Revolution is about weight loss. Hershey doesn't make diet candy.

Edited April 21, 201114 yr by ~bl~

Of course they do, I even saw people posting on Hershey's FB page saying Hershey's was *thisclose* to dropping their advertising with ABC, and since they never said that, I basically told people to stop putting words in their mouths.

Ugh all this crap is making soap fans in general look bad and nuts

That's true, but let's be honest, could the reputation of soap fans get any worse than it already is? I mean really....

Edited April 21, 201114 yr by Vizion

"We are the people that buy Hershey. So they need to show us that they value us."

Right out of the shipper campaign handbook.

That's true, but let's be honest, could the reputation of soap fans get any worse than it already is? I mean really....

LOL I'm at the point I think it could get worse.

Some soap fans wonder why soap fans get mocked and not taken seriously......

Advertisers must plan for soap opera's second act

By Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson

Published: April 20 2011 18:09 | Last updated: April 20 2011 18:09

"Beloved soap star" should rank high on the list of the world's most dangerous jobs. In few other professions is the risk of being killed off so high. Even by the standards of the genre, however, the body count is starting to look far-fetched.

Last week, Disney's ABC announced plans to cancel All My Children and

One Life To Live, each of which had been highlights of US daytime television for more than four decades. Their demise follows the untimely end of As the World Turns and Guiding Light, two Procter & Gamble-produced CBS soaps dating from the days when soap brands gave the format its name.

Read more...

http://www.ft.com/cm...l#ixzz1K705nfFV

Honestly. Can you imagine if that attitude had pervaded in the 1970s and silenced the Irmas, the Bill Bells, Douglas Marlands and Agnes Nixons of the genre? Erica's abortion would never have happened. And neither would Carla Gray on OLTL. And neither would the AIDS quilt and soaps dealing with returning Vietnam veterans and Markey's gang-rape and so many other, groundbreaking moments.

We cannot keep censuring ourselves and must start accepting that one is never going to please all of the people all of the time! We do not live in a world of rainbows and white picket fences and sunshiney days and all men love women, and all women love pink and long hair and baking. It never was 100% thus and it isn't 100% the status quo now, no matter how many episodes of The Hills and Real Housewives -- much as I enjoy those shows -- try to convince us otherwise.

Exactly. Even though I don't think it was a flawlessly done story--when was the only time OLTL got any real press (or I might guess even fans) in the past 10 years? Kish--yeah ratings didn't spike but to then kill that story just speaks of all the mismanagement and cluelessness (and Kish wasn't even all that groundbreaking in tv terms for 2010)

Yup. As much as I hate the fact that the show has been canceled mainly because S&K drove it into the ground, we couldn't ask for anything more than for Agnes herself to be involved with the ending. I shudder to think what S&K would've done to this show over the next few months.

Although the ratings did briefly improve, more and more I think hiring Pratt really was the start of the spiral all the way down (even though I admit that spiral had begun long before). I liked some of the initial things he did, but to hire a man who was so proud of not writing in character, one that everyone involved with the show seems to have hated... S&K's main prob was they were just often pretty boring (and I think Feb sweeps was a trainwreck of boring ness where nothing seemed to happen or have any momentum) but personall I enjoyed, well, well enough, a big chunk of their writing.

Do we know if Agnes is going to have any input into OLTL's finale? I would like to hear her ideas for Viki, at least, and perhaps Dorian. I also wish she could possibly get Ellen Holly back (pipe dream).

They make it sound like she is but aren't very clear on that part... The prob is Agnes hasn't directly done any writing for OLTL since 1973--as hated by many fans as, say Ryan is, Agnes at least knows him, the only people from OLTL on from 73 are Vicki and a different Dorian. That said I'd love if they at least listened to her ideas (she does seem to have at least kept some tabs on the show) and doing a final scene for Vicki, or something similar, would be awesome.

I highly doubt Agnes will be involved with the ending in any meaningful way. They may run some ideas by her, if that, but she's been detached from the show for so long, there's really no need for her input. I think that for good of for bad, FV and RC will be calling all the shots.

I remember years ago when Agnes was a guest on the old Richard Bey talk show here in NYC. Must've been around 1985. She was introduced as the creator of AMC and OLTL, and one of the audience members asked her what was next for OLTL's Tina. Agnes looked like a deer in the headlights. She stumbled a bit as she tried to answer, giving some stock response that "you'll have to wait and see." It was clear that she no longer had any involvement with the show and knew precious little about storylines. And this was 25 years ago! She may make a token appearance at the end, but I think we can forget about her having a say in how the show comes to an end.

There's that one Paley Center interview where someone mentions, from around the same time, about how great Nicki being back is and Agnes DOES seem to be aware of the story, but she freely says that she is not involved with the writing of the show anymore at all (although I believe she still held her ABC Daytime Consultant credit)--similarly when Ruach fired Ellen Holly it seems that Agnes couldn't do anything about it--so offered Ellen and her mom's scress to move them to Loving (which Ellen saw as a diss--as much as I loved Loving I can't say I am too surprised Ellen did...)

I don't think the ratings were appreciably higher before they went front burner and then after they were abruptly written off. It was sad that Frons et al scapegoated them for falling ratings, when that probably wasn't the case. As a gay man I was very proud of that story and the actors involved, and proud that daytime would go there. Kish embodied what I feel daytime should be: social relevance combined with romance....essentially the Agnes Nixon template. Yes, some of the story beats were on the cliche side and some of the coming-out dialogue atrocious, although I find the OLTL dialogue in general pretty atrocious, but in general it was a well told story that reflected what was unfolding in society and maybe even educated a couple of ignorant viewers along the way. So they dump that and go with a WTF mustache-twirling Clint and that neverending Tess inanity.

Absolutely--in fact ratings have been lower on average since, right? And if there were bad ratings during the Kish "climax" (so to speak) the fact that the show was a MESS with Stacey, Mitch, etc, at the time obviously played some part.

My hopes are mostly for some more recent people, but a few of the old guard, like Michael Storm, Judith Light and yes, Ellen Holly. I won't ask for Doris Belack, Marilyn Chris (is she still alive?) or Brynn Thayer. I'd really appreciate it if Carla came in on one of her dayplayer grandkids' arms, or with Al Freeman, or all of the above.

As for Andrea Evans, I think she will show up. I don't think they could keep her away, and I personally would like her back for at least several months or weeks.

+1 Michael Storm would especially be great, he has mentioned a lot how much he'd come back in a heartbeat and he is a good friend of Vicki's (and of course then it would make more sense for Judith to return too). And as DeeDee said it would be nice if some of the forgotten recurring vets--at the top for me would be Renee--returned.

http://dealbook.nyti...to-pine-valley/

April 15, 2011, 1:11 pm Investment Banking

For Buffett, No More Trips to Pine Valley

By GREGORY SCHMIDT

ABC/Steve Fenn Warren E. Buffett in an episode of "All My Children" with Susan Lucci, whose character on the soap was wrongfully imprisoned for insider trading.

The decision by ABC to cancel two of its stalwart soap operas, "All My Children" and "One Life to Live," will put about 60 full-time actors out of work, not to mention the scores of part-time actors, producers, directors, writers and crew members employed by each show.

But the ax will also fall on a well-known Wall Street investor, Warren E. Buffett.

Mr. Buffett, 80, appeared on "All My Children" several times as himself, first in the early 1990s when he showed up with Thomas S. Murphy, the chairman of Capital Cities/ABC Inc., to provide business advice to Pine Valley's resident vixen and entrepreneur, Erica Kane, played by Susan Lucci.

He returned in 2008 when Erica was imprisoned after being wrongly convicted of insider trading, and she turned to him for help.

Despite giving a performance that prompted an invitation to return, Mr. Buffett — a friend of Agnes Nixon, creator of the two daytime dramas — concedes he's no actor.

"Tom Murphy and I were probably the only ones who ever needed cue cards and at times even these weren't enough to keep us from muffing our lines," he said through his assistant, Debbie Bosanek.

For his efforts, Mr. Buffett was paid the union scale salary as a day player, roughly $700.

But don't expect him to apply for unemployment benefits anytime soon. The shares Mr. Buffett owns in his conglomerate, Berkshire Hathaway, are worth more than $40 billion.

ITA. The last great innovator in daytime was Linda Gottlieb, and even she gave up on it after Disney took over and started trying to micro-manage her casting decisions.

She was out at least a year before the purchase I think which happened in 96--but I do agree that bringing her on--someone who had both respect for soaps and innovative ideas was one of the last decent things.

I was thinking about LG when I mini-ranted on FOJ. I found it very curious that ES would say that LG wasn't particularly good for the show. I think she was one of the best things that ever happened to OLTL. And I don't know, maybe she was a little arrogant and industry people got their feelings hurt because she tried to reinvent the wheel or whatever when her efforts should have been widely applauded. I think the fact that this woman walked away from the show on her own accord (how often does that happen?) and the entire industry in general really said a lot.

What was the ES quote? Back when she came on the soap press overall seemed to be upset with this movie producer working on soaps, though manyof them came around. However I suspect she alwasy planned to be on only a couple of years--Carl posted that great interview with her and it sounded like she just got tired of other things and saw Daytime as an exciting adventure, but not a life changer.

I think in the long run Malone's stories damaged the show quite a bit (making Todd a Lord, and the sexual abuse angle which later writers used way too much), although he did have a lot of talent.

I think that Gottlieb did a lot to help OLTL move forward, she introduced some fantastic characters, but I guess I can see where Erika had some doubts.

And don't forget to give poor coHW Griffith some credit--those two men seem to only do decent soap work as a team (and even that was questionable last time around though when G left the show bottomed out).

I dunno, I agree and see your point, but he also did a lot to bring it back--in style anyway--to Agnes' roots which the show really needed. The last couple of years of the Rauch era were such a mess, and the ratings were bottoming out, I think while under Gottlieb it was always a middle rated show that that era did extend the life of the show.

There's that one Paley Center interview where someone mentions, from around the same time, about how great Nicki being back is and Agnes DOES seem to be aware of the story, but she freely says that she is not involved with the writing of the show anymore at all (although I believe she still held her ABC Daytime Consultant credit)--similarly when Ruach fired Ellen Holly it seems that Agnes couldn't do anything about it--so offered Ellen and her mom's scress to move them to Loving (which Ellen saw as a diss--as much as I loved Loving I can't say I am too surprised Ellen did...)

I still wish that Ellen Holly had taken the offer - I think she would have fit in very well at Loving, the ladies of that era, moreso than Rauch's OLTL. I can see her with Ava, Gwyn, Ann, Isabelle, etc.

For me it's not so much about Agnes not being in touch with current OLTL stories as it is the people at ABC Daytime/OLTL needing a reminder of OLTL's initial concept. If she could contribute that, and also perhaps some story for Viki, or Dorian, or some final moments with the Halls or the Woleks, and some reminder of the "relevancy" type of story she pioneered, then I think it would be a good idea. She doesn't have time for that on AMC.

Please....when the whole pay to post went down on SON..nobody wanted to give Errol money....

Oh Lord, that happened here too?

Oh Lord, that happened here too?

Yup