Putting some things in perspective (re ABC Daytime)

[Eric83]

I wanted to wait until I got to a computer to talk about this, but basically this past weekend I was hanging out with one my cousins and she introduced to me to her friend that used be a crew member at GH (I honestly do not remember what she did ) Anywho, you know I was picking at her brain asking her a million questions. She shed light on quite a few things.

The ones I remember the most was she said the whole thing about OLTL being the only ABC soap under budget was a myth. Actually, the reason GH did the carnival back in 2009 was because THEY were underbudget.

I asked her about the cancellations, and she told me all 3 EP's knew the shows were getting the axe. They were told in February 2011 that ABCD was changing and soaps were not apart of that change. They were just waiting on an end date to be announced. The word came down from Disney to get rid of the soaps, it was never Frons' decision to cancel. Of course The Revolution bombing wasn't in their plans which is why GH is still here.

AMC's move to LA was supposed to preserve the show, and yes OLTL was always going to be canceled no matter how well they did but AMC's rating did not justify staying on the air so they got rid of both at once instead of doing one by one cancellations.

The GH related things you guys already know: Guza and JFP were both fired to cut budgets, ABC purposely played hardball with their contracts knowing they wouldn't take them. Guza refused so he was let go, JFP eventually agreed but ABC told her goodbye and brought in FV and RC behind her back. It was their plan all along hence the big deal about their contracts back in 2010.

That's really all the good stuff she told me that I was interested in.

[Michael]

Interesting! Thanks for sharing.

[DRW50]

I guess the rest of GH's budget at that time went to paying for all that scenery Martha Byrne chewed.

[soapfave06]

Wow! Thanks for sharing that. A lot of that is more interesting than most of the soaps themselves. I kind of hope they are never able to rebuild a daytime audience just for the way they treated the entire situation.

[JaneAusten]

That all kind of jives with one insider who said months before it was announced that AMC and OLTL were both going to be gone quickly. And also that while OLTL had the lowest budget, they were not the only show under budget, GH was also but that budget cuts for GH were coming to the tune of 50 to 75 percent and that GH would be gone at some point also.

I never thought Guza was fired for any reason other than money. If falling ratings were a legit reason, he would have been fired years ago. I doubt Valentini and Carlivati make close to what Phelps and Guza made primarily because of the experience and years Guza and Phelps had in the business.

[ChitHappens]

Thanks for sharing. I heard that Guza was making roughly $50k/week and Wolf was getting $30k something. Never thought Frons was behind the cancellations.

[dragonflies]

no offense but I don't remotely believe the AMC move was to save the show. it's obvious it wasn't cause they knew people like David Canary wouldn't want to move, which was their plan.

[JaneAusten]

How does the fact David Canary didn't move mean anything. Saving the show is more than keeping a few fanfaves and I loved Adam but it was clearly a move to try to contain the budget and keep the show around. Why else just to mess with a few actors? It didn't work out but that doesn't translate to ABC wanting it gutted.

[dragonflies]

If you say so From what I read Frons knew even before the move that the show was going to be cancelled, but yet let it be moved anyways.

[JaneAusten]

Frons let it happen? I can't keep track. First he orchestrated the move to get rid of some actors now the move wasn't his choice.

Maybe ABC was trying to contain the budget so the show could last a little longer. No I don't buy into all of these conspiracy theories. Frons being an incompetent exec doesn't translate to ABC condoning throwing a ton of cash to move a show. They could have just cancelled AMC in 2009 rather than moving it if that was supposedly always their intention all along.

[Cheap21]

It makes more sense to move AMC across the country than outright canceling it (if that's what they really wanted to do)? People and their conspiracy theories...

[SFK]

There is no way a network would move a show cross country merely to cancel it.

To slash its costs perhaps endangering its already dubious quality before its inevitable cancellation a few years down the road? Absolutely. But if ABC was ready and willing to cancel AMC at the time, it would have been cancelled.

[Eric83]

Yeah they invested too much money into it to want it canceled. They were hoping for a ratings turn around and it didn't happen. I hope someone writes a book about ABCD post Disney. So much drama.

[EnglishTea]

It seems like Frons was initially brought on to revamp the shows in his vision - and yes - train the viewer to like it. I think he truly thought this was possible. I truly believe focus groups were catered to his vision. He also took the tier system used at ABC, and turned it upside down. They had A, B, C, D, E, etc. Susan Lucci and Michael E. Knight were usually in the top tier, David Canary, Julia Barr, James Mitchell, etc were the next level, and so forth. Newer, younger characters were D, E, F levels. The idea was to take the D, E, F levels and slowly integrate them with the high levels, thus eventually moving the newer, younger characters up the tier/Q rating. When Frons came on board, he reversed this system - taking the D, E, F, etc and putting them in the A story as the leads, and taking the A, B tiers and putting them in B, C stories as the supporting characters. He tinkered with a proven formula, and ultimately took down ABC daytime, whether that was his charge or not. I don't think it was his decision to take the shows off the air, I think that was ABC/Disney's decision, but Frons made it possible.

His vision removed female veterans in their 40s/50s (and tier levels of A/B), and shaped the shows to be bad versions of primetime shows, such as Fusion being a poorman's version of "Sex in the City" with D, E, F levels.

What ABC failed to realized was that the long time viewers watched those ladies in their 40s/50s grow up before their eyes, and shoving them off to the side pissed off those viewers. They left, and broke the chain that had sustained soaps for years - passing their show onto the next generation.

[ellabelle]

This definitely goes along with what we witnessed on the show with characters like Erica playing more of a supporting role.

As far as the move goes, the studio in NYC was expensive, and it was small enough that sets had to be taken down every single night - a crew literally worked all night long to take down that day's sets and put up the next day's sets, with the un-used sets and props going into storage until they were needed again. Moving to a bigger studio in LA allowed ABC to lose that whole overnight probably union crew. The sets in LA were up all the time, and they dumped a bunch of seldom used sets too - we've all commented how we no longer saw as many homes and workplaces after the move.

And yes, in terms of cutting costs, moving to LA meant that ABC could possibly dump some of its bigger, higher paid actors who weren't willing to move AND take a pay cut. The actors themselves have said that they were told they could take a pay cut and go to LA with AMC or they could quit. Pushing younger, cheaper actors to the frontburner, ditching extra crew, and cutting loose some of the more expensive cast members were all done to save money and remake the show in some other way. I do think if ABC was in a position to cancel AMC in 2008/2009, they would have done so. But for whatever reason - ratings, money, the lack of another well-tested program ready to go in its place - they went forward with the move and canceled the show later.