AMC and OLTL Canceled!

[Marco Dane]

Have Erika Slezak and Susan Lucci done a interview together before ?

[R Sinclair]

:lol:

I think this is the funniest sentence I've read in this entire thread.

[SFK]

My dad and I randomly caught that, it was pretty funny. Hunter's *appearance*, the floor turning to liquid, 50-something Ridge being pimped in a speedo, it was all so bizarre and felt like a dirty laundry moment.

[dragonflies]

MEK talks about AMC's cancellation:

http://smashinginterviews.com/interviews/actors/michael-e-knight-interview-all-my-children-star-thanks-fans-for-tad-martin

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): Michael, did you find out about the cancellation with the rest of the All My Children cast?

Michael E. Knight: Well, yes, they had a formal declaration. Brian Frons came down and did a thing in the studio. But it had definitely been on the rumor mill for about two years because of shrinking Nielsen ratings and budget cuts. You could really see it coming. I don’t think it took anybody by surprise. I think we thought it might go a little longer, but due to the bad economy and the effects the Internet has had on entertainment as a whole, we knew we were coming up on cancellation.

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): Have you thought about joining another daytime drama or even an Internet soap?

Michael E. Knight: I don’t know. I’m very hopeful. I’ve been around for quite a while. My mom says: “God doesn’t bring you that far to drop you on your head.”

There is a very large industry out there of people, very trained in front of the camera and behind the camera that know the format. I can’t help but think that at some point the audience will get sick and tired of reality television and would want to go back to soap operas because they have had such a following for decades. Surely somebody out there is going to take a shot at it.

You might start seeing soap operas on three days a week or there’s the novella format which is six months limited run or a year. I’m kind of hopeful that if not AMC, somebody out there is trying to think of a way to keep this going without just shutting down the format entirely.

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): There have certainly been rumors of other networks picking up the shows and a more recent rumor has been Netflix.

Michael E. Knight: Netflix … that would be interesting. If you know you sort of have the base audience out there estimated upwards of 2,000,000 people that like a show or like the format, there’s an audience out there getting to them. I think the waters have been muddied by a lot of things like SOAPnet.

My heart goes out to the major networks because they are still operating on the Nielsen rating model which has been dying across the board. I mean, if you start looking at it, soaps across the board have taken a 20% hit. I think it’s because people are getting their programming elsewhere or they’re DVRing it. It is wonderful to have had a run as long as we’ve had and as long as I’ve had. But as long as you’re still in the game, something else will happen. It always does.

[marceline]

What an amazing interview. Oddly enough I haven't gotten particularly sad about saying goodbye to AMC until Tad shows up on screen. That's when I find myself really thinking about how much I'll miss this show.

[JaneAusten]

What an amazing realistic and refreshing outlook. Its nice not to hear this perspective and I would bet more than less of the people on daytime see this.

He's right someday someone will take it up again.

And I am with you Marceline. One of the many reasons I quit watching GH was Tad and what and how they wrote and marginalized his placement on the show. I may not be happy seeing Dixie come back to life for the upteenth time, but I am actually excited in a way to see this the last few months of this show hopefully giving character like Tad and Erica some story and hopefully see the Chandlers together with Adam back with JR.

[alexisfan07]

Love MEK

[EricaKane70]

If the show went to netflix all the actors would have to take a severe paycut, and I just don't see many people staying.

[JaneAusten]

I don't think thats a realistic proposition unless you pared the cast down a lot and retooled a lot.

[EricaKane70]

Exactly, Netflix is about paying for movies and tv shows people as a whole want to see. Soap Operas really don't fit into their agenda.imo The soapstars would get paid peanuts and I don't even want to talk about production value.

[Ann_SS]

MEK is my soap perspective twin. I love that he is saying exactly what I (and a few of others) have saying about the soaps reinventing themselves in a new format, especially my long held belief that the telenovela format is the way to go. Hopefully, others in the industry will start thinking the same way. Soaps having a limited run 3 to 4 times a week over a 13 week period might be the way to go.

[marceline]

I don't know what they're drinking over there at AMC but IMO they're handling all of this very well. We had Mathison teaching a meditation class and now MEK being all zen about the whole thing. Must be something about that west coast living.

[JaneAusten]

LOL and RPG talking about retiring. They all seem to be dealing with this very well and like it was expected. Other than some of the hysterionics from a few at OLTL, everyone else seems to be dealing with the situation quite well.

[SFK]

It's like what they used to tell us about NY vs. L.A. in acting school... in L.A. when the doors keep getting slammed in your face, at least the sun is shining.

[JaneAusten]

Does anyone know who Jim Romanivich is? He seems to keep tweeting stuff about how someone is listening etc related to questions about the shows

being saved or picked up.