Soap Classic distribution license ending with ATWT and GL

[DRW50]

He posted a few days ago and said this was all news to him.

[Chris B]

Yeah, I didn't mean Roger when I posted that lol. He also posted on his twitter that he's still looking into it. But I do think Soap Classics need to be honest. Like Roger said, you don't suddenly find out your license is ending at the last minute. Plus there is still one DVD ready to go, so something is up. One thing i will say, is that I wish they had only announced GL and ATWT because I was always so hopeful for a DVD release of SFT or AW, even if it's just one general Best Of set for each.

[Soapsuds]

From Roger:

"Things are still fluid and could change but you have to take the SC email at face value. They are selling their current stock and there are no plans to continue at this point. I was expecting another DVD to be out by now but that probably won't see the light of day.

My best guess: The music issues have definitely been a huge drawback and help grind this thing to a halt. Everyone has to be paid too, and that's an expense you can't get around. To go from tapes in the warehouse to bringing them in house, encoding them, editing them (some more than others) and releasing them was a very involved process. If there was some magical way all these thousands of tapes could be digitized instantly the situation might be different. Not sure. The sales were good and the reaction from fans was overwhelmingly enthusiastic but it seems like the ROI at this point has diminished. I'll hopefully have a more detailed update by next week.

A lot of my favorite old soap episodes feature pop music so they would probably never get released anyway. The music is too expensive to license again (presumably there was a one-time usage paid when the episode aired) . Plus, the music is mixed with the dialogue and can't be edited (examples would include Roger in the Hall of Mirrors "Enough is Enough" of The Four Musketeers Prom featuring every smash pop song from 1983). The episodes from the 2000s are easier since the music is on a separate track (plus, soaps started using generic music versus Top 10 hits), but would still have been encoded and edited. It would take years to get all this stuff digitized but my fear is the tapes get messed up somehow just sitting around. There's been some issues with that already. Tapes of AW, SFT, EON, TEX and some of GL never left storage at all."

[P.J.]

_{sonofabitch...I waited too long. They no longer have any of the collections for sale. I really wish they'd have given us an "ending by" date. I kind of assumed we'd have to the end of the month.}

[Chris B]

Geez, I decided to check eBay and based on how much some are selling for, I wish I had bought some to sell later lol. Such a sad day though. This had so much promise.

[Marco Dane]

Good thing I ordered The Trial of Jennifer Richards last week

They just shut down the site

SoapClassics

Welcome to SoapClassics, where we love classic soaps as much as you do. We are sorry to report that our license to represent episodes of "As the World Turns" and" Guiding Light" has expired, and that these series are no longer be available from us. However, weare working on licensing other series and titles, so please stay tuned to this site. We want to thank all of our loyal customers for your enthusiastic support, and wish you the very happiest of holiday seasons." For inquiries regarding previously placed order please email [email protected]

[edgeofnik]

I'm really stunned. I thought they had a business model figured out, but clearly it was far more complicated than it seemed. It's too bad they didn't just go with a streaming/downloadable format, instead of antiquated DVDs. That would have been far cheaper and people could've have bought on-demand. Oh, well. It was nice while it lasted. For the music ones, it seems like they could've just charged a premium like double for those special episodes. Since these were packaged in groups of 20, make the set $25 or whatever by limiting to one episode with a song. Doesn't matter - water under the bridge. At least some of the stuff came out of the vaults and it will be out there forever on eBay, amazon. Prices will be high now, but guaranteed to drop in the coming months and years.

[EastMA2]

Of course Roger Newcomb is totally distancing himself from this.

[Soapsuds]

Sad to see it shut down. What is the other series and titles they are refering about??

[Mr. Vixen]

I think they were trying to do Edge of Night and Another World, too?

[Chris B]

They announced Edge, AW and SFT, but Roger said those shows never came out of storage. He said there was only enough space and time to focus on ATWT and GL. Honestly, I think the lack of sets focused on recent characters was a problem and they should've tried getting these DVDs in stores. If they could've had a deal with Wal-mart or Target, they could easily ship some more DVDs and build a franchise. They should've used sets using recent episodes (or general Best Ofs spanning decades) to make money, then the older stuff might not sell as well, but it would be covered by the higher selling new sets. Plus with the more recent episodes a lot of that stuff would be transferred already and easier to process. THey also don't have to worry about music rights.

[doolfan]

So I'm assuming within one year the soap classics website won't even exist it will be history all together. I can read through the lines when they said "We are working on other titles to be released." They also said they were hunting a home for Guiding Light and As the World Turns and they both left the CBS airwaves with no new home just thousands of episodes put in storage and sets and everything destroyed leaving fans nothing but memories. Then Prospect Park was going to save All My Children and One Life to Live from being cancelled by mean old ABC and All My Children ended in September (Just like ABC said it would in the cancellation press release) and One Life to Live ended in January (Just like ABC said). Again, sets and things destroyed, thousands of episodes in storage and nothing but memories for fans. Even a year later people are still desperately missing AMC and OLTL. Now Katie has GH's timeslot, GH has OLTL's timeslot and The Chew has AMC's timeslot. ABC Daytime is just jacked up now. I know CBS won't bring back the soaps but atleast their timeslots still exist with network programming so they could easily cancel one show and put a soap there. That isn't the case with ABC. At least NBC seems to be committed to airing Days of our Lives for the foreseeable future. Here lately things just haven't been going in the soap fans favor and it truly is sad.

[P.J.]

I am more than a little surprised they didn't try and capitalize on either the Nuke or Skatie fanbases.

It's really sad to think of all that history sitting neglected in some dusty warehouse literally fading/crumbling/rotting away.

[silascrocker]

Very Sad!! I loved getting Guiding Light DVDS in the Mail. I'm glad that I bought all the GL DVDS

before they were gone. Guiding Light is my All time Favorite Soap.

Are there any Soap Experts out there who might know who to contact at Procter and Gamble,

maybe a mailing address,e-mail address or Phone #, that the fans could contact to try

and get GL/ATWT ETC on DVD again. these shows deserved to be seen again, not to sit

ina vault somewhere.

[Sindacco]

I think this is a perfect example that streaming is not a good idea. Just think if all the episodes that have been released on DVDs this past year, they would just have been up on some site for streaming. Then when the license ended Soap Classics would have taken them down. At least now people get the keep the episodes on their DVDs.

Streaming is risky IMO. But being able to pay for and download episodes might be a good idea.