The Future of soaps...?

[sungrey]

I think websoaps, both of the style of "The Grove" and "Venice", and soapy scripts on sites like MySON and OnTV, are going to be bigger down the road.

[juppiter]

5 days a week x 1 hr per day is not viable. BUT I really would like to see some kind of spinoff attempted. Why do we have to lose all these decades of history?

[frequentsoapfan]

Not with GH. They had more than enough Spinoffs since they premiered.

[ChitHappens]

Not sure why we can't just let go. I know its tough because the genre will be a thing of the past, but the final 4 are not even a half decent representation of yester year. Look at the great shows we've lost over the years. If there was an interest by anyone who could make changes, that would have happened. The time has come, so let's start naming really good shows that ended:

Mash

Dallas (JR was the greatest character ever on tv)

I have so many more...

ANDREA

[NothinButAttitude]

I think that everyone might've misread what I was implying. I know that these soaps are dying and will be off by 2015; however, that does not mean the genre has to die. I was talking more along the line if a new set of soaps were to come along. Genres die all the time but always find a way of coming back. I mean look that family sitcoms, which died out in the late 90s, but have made a comeback in recent years. Maybe I'm just a bit more optimistic but I think that soaps are going to die off but someone with a smart sense business and true passion for the genre will come back and revive the genre.

[quartermainefan]

Soap opera as a style aren't really dying. Here comes Dallas again and it is 2012, and so many of the most popular shows are serialized and deal with romantic entanglements and schemes and the like (Game Of Thrones is as serialized as Dallas ever was) There just are not enough people home in the afternoon and the tired domestic stuff that has been recycled for 50 years has worn outs its welcome. If you take domestic stuff and package it with things people actually find interesting, you can get something like Mad Men.

[frequentsoapfan]

There are enough people home during the afternoons they just have other channels to occupy themselves with. I know I watch Lifetime or Boy Meets World during GH time

[DRW50]

Some elements of soaps are now mainstream (like the whole "shipping" phenomenon which ends up being everywhere - I even see this with Big Bang Theory). What is missing when films or primetime have serialized drama is the slow, day-to-day, year-to-year followthrough, and how these years can change characters and build stories.

Unfortunately, this is also missing from soaps, but it's why I will always think that a 3-to-5 day a week format is still important for serialized drama, and why I can't just say, "Soaps have been dying since 1953, live with it!"

I feel like there is less to watch on TV each year. All the cable channels air the same shows at different times. Unfortunately, soaps are so awful now, and so offensive, who would want to watch them?

[will81]

That's a tough one. Soaps as we know them today might take another five years to die off. There needs to be some space and time for nostalgia before a revival would happen. Dallas has been off the air for 21 years, so who knows.

If Days got canned, NBC should re-run it from the start, low cost and built in audience, plus those who grew up with it and abandoned soaps long ago would watch. People may have a lot of choice, but the networks aren't asking themselves why they are choosing old 90's reruns of sitcoms over new episodes of soaps. We all know the answer to that. Same can be said of ABC and GH or CBS and Y&R, all those shows have their runs in tact from what I understand.

The 60's seem to be coming back somewhat, fashion is moving that way slightly and Mad Men is in the press a lot since it returned, so maybe some 60's/70's soap nostalgia is needed, which may revive the genre much faster, how that will present itself? I have no idea.

[frequentsoapfan]

Alot of old soap epis were taped over so they can't do reruns from the start. Then add in copyrights for the music that they have to change. You can't compare a show from today to 60/70s soap. They just aren't edgy enough for people to watch.

[will81]

If it is rerun on tv, would they need to clear rights for music since that would have been part of the original deal? Plus popular music wasn't used in every episode. I don't know, I think there is a large enough audience and low enough cost to justify doing it. The ratings would be much better than what soaps are getting now purely for the nostalgia factor alone. I am sure people who stopped watching soaps long ago would tune in to see Y&R from the beginning or GH or Days. All the soaps I mentioned do have their entire runs in tact.

Anyone know what the cost would be vs the payoff.

[frequentsoapfan]

Yes they have to clear musical rights for reruns. Everytime GH does a 90s rerun they have to change the original music. And I don't thnik they have all their old epis in tact because back then they would sometime retape over old tapes. I don't think a large audience would be drawn in to 60s and 70s soap reruns. Nostalgia only goes so far.

[SweetPea36]

There is also the fact that the old tapes have to be cleaned up before they can be used (whatever the term is, maybe digitized?) because the technology has advanced. If you go back and watch some of the old shows on YT, they're a mess. I don't know anything about the technology, but I understand they can be made to work with current equipment.

Someone I know who was wondering why there aren't more montages that include old scenes was told it's a rather expensive process. They have to strip out any copyrighted music and then clean up the tapes before they can be used.

[beebs]

DAYS (I know about DAYS for sure) and Y&R have every episode still in tact, and not just in kinescope form. GH has many years still missing, though.

[All My Shadows]

Old episodes on YouTube are a mess mainly because they come from old VHS recordings or other means. The masters look great. Compare some episodes of Ryan's Hope from the 80s that are on YouTube, which are very fuzzy with not-so-great sound to the 70s episodes that aired on SOAPnet, which were crisp and clear. Same thing with Dark Shadows. IDK if they ever had to clean those tapes.