AMC and OLTL Canceled!

[Dana]

Any idea why it was only Michael Logan who got the scoop about both shows being canceled? Did the inside source only trust him and no one else?

This is my first time posting, so I will say I watched AMC for 35+ years (the first 10 years, I viewed only a few times a year due to school) and it was my most favorite soap ever, so its demise is painful. Even during the bad writing regimes, I hung in there and figured that bad period would pass in time and it would. Chuck Pratt's god-awful soul-killing writing (including and especially killing off Stuart) severely strained my emotional loyalty to the show and David Canary's retirement nearly severed it. But I'm there to the end. With Oprah just ending and AMC ending in September, that will leave a real hole in my viewing schedule.

[Eric83]

LMAO.

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Was Jamey the one talking about OLTL was safe because it being the best performing soap amongst focus groups or something like that?

[JaneAusten]

The fact is Dena was at OLTL for 3 YEARS. I commend ES for having enough and saying something but Chuck Pratt who was the biggest cancer to hit AMC was gone in 18 months. And not one person here knows what went on behind the scenes to cause that ouster. It wasn't ratings because their ratings actually went up under Pratt. I think there is an assumption because Lucci didn't publish her frustrations she didn't voice her concerns behind the scenes. I read her interview with Branco. It doesn't sound like someone who was happy with Pratts writing at all.

[All My Shadows]

But don't you understand? Jamey knows. all. If Lucci didn't care for Pratt, Jamey would have known, you see. He knows all. His sources never informed him of Lucci having issues with Pratt, you see, so she had no issues with Pratt. If she says now that she had issues with Pratt, then she's a filthy, hair-tossing liar. Because Jamey? Jamey Giddens? Yeah, he knows all.

I'm going to lose my damn mind over this.

[Jonathan]

Don't! It's not worth it! Don't let the terrorists win!

[DRW50]

Right.

It's not that I am saying Erika didn't have any influence, because I know she did speak out, which was a surprise at the time because she's a team player, I guess I just always thought Dena's departure had to do with ratings falling in her last few years at OLTL.

Welcome! I hope you post more often.

I guess Logan is well-respected in the industry.

[miche]

All I remember from Jamey was that ABC have three talk show in the wings ready to go at any moments and all three soaps were in danger of being cancel

[marceline]

Really? Because I'm enjoying it. I'm seeing a lot of karma here. You have Jamey who has spent the last few years engaging in an aggressive hate campaign against AMC, having an epic meltdown over some imagined slight from Susan Lucci. She didn't mention his name. She didn't mention DC. She threw an offhand remark about "a blogger with a agenda" and Jamey being a fame-humping attention whore decided that she had to be talking about him. But there's no reason to think she was. Jamey has completely manufactured this in his own mind because he wants her to have been talking about him. And why does he want that? Because she's SUSAN [!@#$%^&*] LUCCI, that's why!! LMAO!

Keep at it Jamey. She doesn't know who you are and she doesn't CARE. A year from now AMC and OLTL will both be gone and GH will be going, DC will be subsisting on banner ads for self-published novels and Susan Lucci will still be working her business like the fierce bitch she is. This is her world. You're just a squirrel trying to get a nut.

[JaneAusten]

Some site and it could have been DC posted alleged focus groups done and that OLTL ranked first with AMC and GH following. And look

which show is left.

[Vee]

AMC was given biased treatment by the network, and OLTL was routinely mistreated. And AMC (and OLTL) deserved to be relentlessly called out for bad stories, bad choices, and bad ratings, and the disparity in finances between the two shows deserved to be called out during the run-up to LA with all that promotion. AMC has been [!@#$%^&*] for a long time, that can't be escaped. But I wasn't cheering for its death.

Where it gets fuzzy is on Planet Jamey. That letter is beyond embarrassing and only served to feed his ever-growing mythology about himself, when none of this is about him or any of us. The fact is that poor Susan Lucci probably has no clue who he is beyond "some blogger," and that his commentary went past calm, reasoned and factual long ago. He also tends to rubber-stamp a lot of what OLTL puts out because he's so wedded to his views that have ceded actual criticism to hyperbole, including giving a pass to [!@#$%^&*] like the Fords, Tess, Tarty, etc. He has a very limited history with the show and he misses the point more of how certain things have absolutely broken that show. In the last several years, for every two or three really good (if often flawed) stories OLTL has put out, there are three or four that are absolutely abysmal and unwatchable. If not for one or two storylines right now, and if not for the cancellation, I would not currently be watching at all.

Is OLTL still been a better show than AMC these last couple years? To me, yes, but I don't fluff off its horrible errors in judgment for the sake of some partisan points. And I certainly was never going to cheer for the cancellation of AMC and get all giddy if it went down without OLTL. I love both soaps and what happened to AMC over the last 5-8 years is a travesty. Had I somehow been forced to make a choice between one or the other staying on the air after the last couple years, I knew what I would've reluctantly chosen, but there's a vast gulf of difference between that outlook and Jamey Giddens's. Tarring all OLTL fans with his histrionic brush is simply not viable.

[marceline]

Ahem...Trekkers dear. Trekkers.

Perhaps Jamey et al should channel their energies into starting a SoapCon. Of course they'd have to acknowledge the fact that there's other soaps besides OLTL. Based on what I've seen here I bet the Edge of Night room would be packed and so would the Another World suite. (In the name of all that's holy sign up the actress who played Frankie Frame. I never watched a single second of the show and even I know that a Q&A with the actress (name?) would be a revenue generator. There's a decent business op here waiting to be maximized.

[DRW50]

It can be annoying, because there are many OLTL fans who have so much insight into the characters and the history and yet the most vocal end up being Nelson or Jamey who seem to view it more about AMC than about OLTL. I often wonder if they had given some of the very intelligent and pointed criticisms so many fans have made over the last few years, if it might have reached someone at OLTL. Instead you get this bitter cheerleading, which almost makes me harder on the show than I might be otherwise.

[marceline]

Of all the mysteries that intrigue me about the BTS at soaps the one I'm most interested in is the focus group component. A number of my previous employers and my current on do a lot of focus group testing. An outside company handled all the logistics while my employers) showed varying levels of direction about what we wanted to have covered and how it should be be collected (surveys, dial testing, group interview, individual interview...) and that doesn't even get in to how the participants are selected.

I guess I keep going back to OLTL's firing Dan Gauthier. The excuse given was "focus group response." At a fan even I met someone who did an ABC focus group and she said they were asked about Kevin. Yes the response was negative because all the scenes and questions focused on the point right before Kelly and Duke had sex when Kevin was an angry, belligerent drunk. Of course he tested poorly. There was no real discussion of how he got that way or how it could be fixed. The just wanted a room of people to say they didn't like Kevin.

I really hope that someone on the inside can leak focus group info. I volunteer my services to help collect and disseminate the information. That would be the soap version of WikiLeaks.

[John]

Claire Labine On We Love Soaps Said That If A Focus Group Gives A Network Data They Dont want, They Throw it out

[marceline]

Jaymelson (yes I'm officially given them a portmanteau name) and others come to a conclusion years ago that everything good that happened to AMC either came at the expense of or detriment to OLTL. Every AMC compliment was a compliment OLTL didn't get. Every AMC promo should've been an OLTL promo and - my personal favorite - every scrap of attention Lucci gets is somehow at the expense of Strasser and Slezak.

In four months, AMC will be off the air and then Jamey and friends can enjoy OLTL without distraction.