AMC and OLTL Canceled!

[SFK]

I am a huge fan of a couple foodie shows, just not sure this one is my bag. Not that I don't appreciate that Dr. Oz brand of informative healthy food talk, but what sells me on a food show is the 30 minute long tortuous mouth-watering foodgasm. I find Batali off-putting, and I have never watched Top Chef but Carla Hall strikes me as someone I might like (I'm probably just saying that because shes from around my way... she did a little food symposium 5 min. from me a couple months back and I really wish I would have gone if only to see how that experience with her would have colored my opinion of this show).

[NYC123]

As much as I dislike it when people post things on FB, fans have a right to voice their frustration. You may not like it but thats how some people get through their anger.

[SFK]

I miss him, God rest his soul. I will NEVER forget the first time I saw him slap down a fat, raw white skinned alligator tail on the cutting board, the audience winced. Also a huge fan of Jacques Pepin, especially when he is with Julia or his daughter Claudine. I thank these PBS shows for providing just enough background while not being too distracting while getting me through weekends of too much damn high school homework! I still catch them from time to time but now it is all about Adam, Andrew, Anthony, Gordon, and Guy.

[SFK]

Well it's one thing when you're smug and nasty to fans about landing your new gig like Mario has been, but to me, attacking these shows' fan pages is akin to writing hate mail to a recast. the anger is misplaced. take it out on the network that gave the order. No one should be 'punished' for seizing what for them is a wonderful career opportunity, one which they and their loved ones are certainly thrilled about. I am sure many of them are conscious of how this sucks for the soap fans, but I cant blame them for being happy for themselves.

[marceline]

If they want to work through their delusion anger by posting crap on ABC's page, great. But when they start attacking the pages of these chefs and other people who will be taking these slots then they're going to far. Unfortunately, that's been a real problem with the Soap Fan Taliban. It's a "you're with us or against us" mentality completely devoid of perspective and they throw a pretty wide net for the "against us." It's not just the people who canceled these shows who are the enemy. It's also the fans who accepted the cancellation, the sponsors who didn't pull ads, the cast and crew of these new shows for daring to take an opportunity offered to them, Susan Lucci for saying that she was looking forward to the next chapter of her life, and Oprah for not spending millions of dollars to buy these soaps even though there was ABSOLUTELY NO REASON to think she would.

And I have no doubt that after the protest tomorrow they'll have a whole new list of perceived insults. CRY FREEDOM!!!!!

[DRW50]

One of the problems is that at times it seems like if any fan doesn't just say, "Hey, daytime has been dead from the start, it's long overdue, no big deal," then that means this person is delusional, pathetic, etc. So that means there's no real middle ground anymore between someone being happy the shows are gone and being crazy and OTT like some fans have been over the last month.

I think leaving messages on the Facebook pages is pointless...I guess it's the modern day equivalent of a fan who says they won't watch the soap replacing their soap. I think if people are unhappy then they should just vote with their remote.

[marceline]

They did. That's why soaps are dead.

[Max]

Here's one thing that I just don't understand: many fans have been complaining for years that Frons has made the ABC soaps unwatchable and unrecognizable. Given this fact, why are these same fans so livid that these shows are being taken off the air (when, thinking rationally about this, it would be better for these soaps to go now than for them to experience years of further decline under Frons)?

Here's another paradox: there are still some other people out there (albeit a relatively small group) who are raving about how wonderful OLTL is at the moment; yet, these same individuals are trashing Frons for being (and always having been) a complete and utter incompetent. However, if OLTL is so wonderful right now, doesn't that mean that Frons has done at least one thing right?

[dragonflies]

Plus One

[DRW50]

We often hear that the quality of the soap was meaningless, and that it is all about OJ making women go work and find cable channels, and that soaps died in 1956 and that it's just no one noticed until now.

I tend to agree more with you that it was about the soaps losing their luster and what made them special.

I would like to see daytime continue in some form, but I have zero confidence in anyone running the networks now to make it happen, and I think they are just slapping together shows instead of working on why viewers have moved on.

[Ann_SS]

I remember the certainty that Let's Make a Deal would flop when GL was cancelled. Well, enough people are watching Let's Make a Deal to make CBS a profit because of its lower production costs. The new ABC shows don't need a huge audience, they just have to draw enough women in the key demos and it is all good for ABC. I have no idea what is going to happen with these new shows, no one does, but we will soon enough.

This isn't true. There is a ton of levels on the middle ground. The problem is that there are a lot of the soap fans simply are not standing there. They are standing on variations of psychotic soap fandom which no perspective. There is simply too much crazy out there right now.

Considering we have been debating in the decline in the soap ratings for the last few years on the SON ratings thread, it is clear that lots of soap fans did notice that the genre was in trouble. I remember us looking at MarkH's graphs and guessing when we thought the cancellation point would reach for the remaining soaps. I also recall a few of us on other threads coming up with ideas about how to revamp the soaps. I and a few others suggested a telenovela format only to be shouted down by a few. There was also the suggest of cutting back the number of episodes per week like the British soaps. Another suggestion was a reality type soap. I think that the soaps will return in a new format a few years down the line.

[All My Shadows]

I think the truly livid (and psychotic) fans are those who are satisfied with what the soaps are dishing out now. You have to trudge through the jungle known as the AMC Facebook page to fully understand.

Viki and Dorian fight. "I'm SO GLAD Frons is leaving OLTL alone and letting RC write his stuff!"

Star/James two-hander. "Frons needs to LEAVE OLTL ALONE!! And let RC write his stuff!!"

[DRW50]

I don't know if there was that much certainty with LMAD. GL was in the pits, ratings-wise, and as soon as it was obvious how cheaply produced LMAD was, I don't think there was a huge expectation for failure. I'm sure the show is doing OK, but CBS' silence on it doesn't suggest to me that it was entirely what they expected. The last time I saw the ratings it was doing worse in the demos and in the household ratings than GL, which is quite a feat. If that has continued, or worsened, then CBS probably isn't making the profit they expected. Ultimately they may decide that giving up on the timeslot altogether is cheapest.

I think that, like with The Talk, all these various hosts are going to drain some money, and I'm sure Mario Batalli must be a fairly big name. I guess it's down to expectations. Is ABC looking to find all kinds of viewers who don't watch daytime and who want a new way to live? If so I think that will need more creativity and competence than anyone at ABC has these days. Is ABC looking for a less expensive replacement for their soaps that will plod along? That could happen. And ultimately it will probably just lead to that timeslot being given away.

I guess I am just used to most soap fans who voice unhappiness with the cancellations or the new shows being told, essentially, that the soaps suck, so they shouldn't complain, that everyone knows daytime has been dead for years and years, that it's not fair to the new shows to be unhappy about them, and so on.

There's also some middle areas that I wouldn't do but I didn't see as being all that horrible, like the people who took out the ad in the Hollywood Reporter. They were called crazy, people said this was all just a con to steal money, etc.

Everything ends up blurring together because sometimes I get the feeling that anything beyond a shrug is seen as too much. But that's just me, and I may be wrong.

I do think there's a lot of craziness and bitterness that is unwarranted, but fortunately I only go to one or two soap boards now so I don't have to see it.

[marceline]

I think it's a combination. The market has changed and the product hasn't evolved.

If you've noticed it's the OLTL pimps like Jamey, Nelson and others, who are exhorting fans to crazier and crazier behavior (followed often by a quick backtracking). It's the reason I have no interest in these protests and petitions. The people pushing them are being disingenuous on a lot of levels and at some point they need to take responsibility for the fact they helped create this situation.

[Khan]

And why don't they want us? Because of the loud-mouthed few who make the rest look like complete lunatics. TPTB cannot hold a discourse with them, let alone please them, so now they're at the point where they'd be done with the whole lot of us.

Of course, what they've forgotten is that no viewer is more loyal than a soap viewer. We're used to shows rising and falling in quality from time to time. We're used to it, and we ride it out unless or until it becomes absolutely unbearable -- and for many, that rock bottom is pretty damn far down. Non-soap fans? Not so much.