10 years ago...

[Eric83]

What soaps did you think would still be here?

I know this may have been discussed before, but with such few soaps left we are bound to repeat topics.

With all of the doom and gloom with the cancelations, haven't some of these soaps actually outlived your expectations?

GL/ATWT outlived mine. I thought GL would be done at least by 2005, and that ATWT would have just followed after due to P&G just letting it go instead of just producing one soap.

DAYS also outlived my expectations, I am completely suprised it made into the new decade, I thought it would have been canned back in 2009. It is a little suprising that by the end of its current renewal, it would still be on the air 6 years after Passions left NBC.

OLTL outlived mine, I never thought it would have made it to 2012. Even though I defended it in the AMC/OLTL wars in the ratings thread, i 'll go ahead and admit I thought the show was over in 2010.

Soaps that ended before I thought include Passions. I thought it would outlive GL, if not ATWT too. It was beating them in Women 18--49, and didn't come attached with expensive 20, 30, or 40 year vets.

I thought AMC and GH would be around until at least 2015. Especially when the show (AMC) was moved to LA.

Y&R/B&B are still around just like I thought they would be.

[DRW50]

Soaps had declined so much in quality by the mid-90s I stopped believing they would be around forever, although I was still never prepared for them to actually start going.

Ten years ago I was pretty tired of all the soaps - even PC, which I'd started to get into again, had lost me thanks to Rafe.

I never thought GL would last to 2009. Every year it was on I was surprised.

AMC was on its last legs for much of 2001 so I had no idea what would happen. I did start to enjoy the show again in mid/late 2001.

Late 2001 was also a low point for GH and a lot of people were uncertain. Looking back now it almost seems like a golden age.

[Khan]

In 2001, the only soaps that looked like goners to me were GUIDING LIGHT and PORT CHARLES.

[MissLlanviewPA]

The thing that surprises me more than anything is how DAYS has held on for as long as it has. If you had told me at one point that NBC (whose daytime schedule has shrunk to the point that it became a joke over time) would have one soap left and ABC (which benefited from the 80s glory days more than any other network) was thisclose to becoming the first broadcast network without a daytime soap on its schedule, I would have NEVER believed you.

Oh, how times have changed.

At the same time, though, I do remember GL being in cancellation danger back then, too.

[OLTL_fan]

I too thought NBC would be the first network with no daytime soaps but now it looks like that will be ABC. Of course I expected GH to outlast DAYS.

GL lasted much longer than I expected. It was obvious the Bell soaps would be the last 2 standing on CBS.

AMC/OLTL: I expected them to be cancelled about a year or 2 the most apart from each other with OLTL going first. I was loving OLTL in 2001.

[CSF]

And Passions.

[BKuzak]

I say Passions and Port Charles. PC was a good show when it started. I love the stories with that irish family, the scalons. I remember one thanksgiving they sang songs and everything. then it turned into these story arc book things. I hated all the vampire stuff and whatever. i thinik the show lastsed much longer than it should have.

I never liked Passions. it's like the jerry springer of soaps. it gave soaps a bad name. people i know watched an episode of Passions and based their dislike for all soaps on it. Actually if it was a nighttime thing, it would have gotten more viewers and gotten people away from thinking all daytime soaps are like that.

[CCCapwell]

Well something happened along the way NO ONE PREDICTED and that was some time after "Passions" demise NBC decided to close up the entire NBC Daytime division. With the morning timeslots now belonging to NBC News with the 3rd and 4th hours of "TODAY", remember those "hours" at one time belonged in the afternoon but as NBC canceled soaps they gave NBC News those hours. So NBC decided they weren't going to fund a daytime division to only oversee one show: DAYS. As a result, and this is a HUGE factor that DAYS remains on the air today is that there is no team of execs at NBC who are being pitched daytime shows, so without a development exec looking a new options, then the threat to replace DAYS is almost non-existent. Don't get me wrong if the point comes and DAYS is no longer making money for NBC it will be canceled, although replaced with a talkshow like AMC and OLTL, it just isn't going to happen as there isn't a Brian Frons type exec at NBC looking at cheaper options for their soap. And this is also why I believe DAYS will be the last daytime soap on the air.

There just isn't anyone at NBC concerned with replacing DAYS, they have enough trouble with their primetime divison lol so DAYS remains for as long as it makes money for NBC.

[Max]

I remember that ten years ago--and even before that--a sizable number of DOOL fans were hoping for ABC to cancel OLTL and replace it with their soap. The thinking at the time was that DOOL was unsafe on NBC, and that it would be so much safer on a network that cared about its soaps. (In hindsight, this opinion could not have been more wrong.) Given that rumors spread about an OLTL cancellation (to make room for DOOL) back in the 90s, I'm guessing that the only reason why DOOL never made the switch to ABC was because Corday refused to give that network ownership of the soap. (Even if ABC was truly a better network for soaps than NBC, I still could never understand DOOL fans' desire to get their soap on ABC because they failed to realize that DOOL's audience would likely take a big tumble upon a network switch.)

Ten years ago, I also believed that Passions wouldn't last much longer. However, within a couple of years--after that soap kept on getting renewed despite awful ratings--I believed NBC's spin that they were thrilled with the show's demos and consequently thought that Passions would be around for a very long time. (Eight or so years ago, I further believed that NBC was in bed with JER, and that would also prevent a Passions cancellation.)

There's no way in hell that I would have believed that ATWT or AMC would be off the air by now. If somebody a decade ago said that, I would have called them crazy. Even GL appeared to be on solid footing (despite being in 8th place); unfortunately, ratings plunged so much during the Conboy/Weston regime (to the point that it was just barely above Passions) that cancellation seemed like it would happen in 2004 or 05.