AMC and OLTL Will Move Online!

[Max]

Angela, I sincerly apologize if I gave the false impression that you were being overly critical of PP. (I certainly did not mean to suggest that you were being very harsh on them.) I was just very impressed that you had the courage to even criticize the PP executives to any meaningful extent. Previously, I always had the impression that members of the soap press were presenting PP in the best light possible.

I concede that perhaps I am being too harsh in my assessment of PP. It's just that I am a very skeptical person who has gotten burned by false hope in the past. (And I want to caution the Nixon soap fans against getting their hopes up.) While I hope I am wrong, I have been starting with the assumption that the PP executives are exploiting AMC/OLTL fans in a selfish effort to increase PP's name recognition.

[SFK]

For some reason, I'm very impatient watching things online. Watching live, not a problem.

[Eric83]

I don't feel like going through this read so I'm just asking has anyone heard anything about JvD saying at a fan event that PP OLTL starts filming 12/5?

Also supposedly AMC is really being put on hold, because PP has been notified that GH will soon be available because they want to launch Katie Couric's show early because they want to get a jump on the 2012 presidential campaign.

I don't believe any of it, and sorry to cause anymore confusion just want to see if there is any truth to it.

[EricMontreal22]

This is exactly the same as with me (no big surprise as I think you and I share the same aspects in what we love with soaps).

[Errol]

• Katie isn't starting early and if ABC were trying to get a jump on the presidential campaign, Katie already has ABC News itself as a platform since she is an ABC News correspondent as well per her contract with Disney/ABC.\
  
  
  • AMC being put on hold has nothing to do with GH being available soon. Prospect Park doesn't have a deal with Disney/ABC for GH (yet).
    

  [*]Don't recall if JvD said anything about a 12/5 start for OLTL via PP, though it would be logical since the current studio space was rented for a near immediate return to filming for the actors who have or will soon sign on to OLTL 2.0.

[Errol]

So basically, Variety opted to not cite Soaps in Depth, and the WSJ just cited Variety, while TV Guide, Huffington Post, etc all cited SID. So nothing is new besides what SID reported? Oh this will be fun. Writing....

[John]

Oh Errol Im sorry

[Eric83]

[Errol]

This is so much fun.....

[TeamEric]

Rauch's OLTL was campy and a Dallas rip-off versus Gottlieb's was cutting edge drama.

RC's vision is often satirical. He openly mocks the characters, the genre and it's out-dated, silly old cliches! It's sometimes like watching the old satires SOAP and Mary Hartman. The audience is encouraged to mock and laugh AT the silly plots and characters. RC can be quite clever and stinging at times. I thought using the sleazy porn producer as the voice of Frons threatening to cancel One Life to Live was a brilliant skit. In one episode, RC told us he got it... we want romance and heart while sleazy producers want to punch up the sleaze and skin factor. It was sly, very sly writing.

OLTL has changed identities since the 70s, but this is nothing new for the show.

[TeamEric]

I don't know what to believe either.

I read that report a few affiliates weren't willing to wait until 9/2012 to take back the GH slot. So I asked a friend at the Boston affiliate and he did confirm GH is underperforming all projections, even in its strongest northeast markets. There is real fear out there that GH will collapse further when OLTL goes off the air. If GH falls way below projections, affiliates can take the slot back. ABC is aware of this and aren't acting very worried so make of that what you will.

As for AMC, I am not sure PP tried very hard to reach an agreement with Lucci. They played hardball with her because it suited their financials to only launch one soap at first.

[TeamEric]

Errol, the WSJ blog cited PP's market research firm and reprinted their PowerPoint slides, too. That article had a lot of facts and figures about PP searching for financing.

The rest of the sites are just repeating gossip from SID, IMO.

[AmandainNC28655]

Now that Lucci is in Charleston, SC filiming a few episodses of Army Wives I wonder if she will jump into the primetime venue depending upon what type of reviews she receives from her stint on Army Wives??

[ellabelle]

This wouldn't surprise me at all. She has reportedly given serious consideration to leaving AMC in the past for primetime or film, but never did. I've heard that it was because her kids were young and she wanted to be able to go home to them every night or because she genuinely liked working on AMC or because she didn't want to give up a sure thing in terms of income. But now that the show is over, she's under no obligation to PP, and her kids are grown and on their own. I don't see why she wouldn't attempt to move to primetime or even film. Some of the gossip sites said she had lunch with "Desperate Housewives" producer Marc Cherry not long ago, and some have theorized that he might be interested in casting her in a new pilot. I had also heard that she was going to be back on "Hot in Cleveland" again this season, but I'm not sure how accurate that is.

[Errol]

‘All My Children’ 2.0 Put on Hold, But Wasn’t It Obvious?