Daytime Confidential article on ABC Daytime.

[doolfan]

It's also the fact that primetime is struggling to and networks probably don't want to hand out more money than they have to.

I think what truly killed All My Children in the end was it's over $60 million a year budget. Y&R dosen't even have a budget that high. GH also had a budget over $60 million but since Frank came it's reportedly around $40 million.

[Khan]

And it didn't need to be that high either, except Julie Hanan Carruthers was so inept as an EP that the show often ran way over budget.

[doolfan]

Agreed. If the show had been running on $40 million a year maybe they would've kept it another year or two. But I will hand it to All My Children that even though they didn't need that kind of budget they were a good looking soap! The sets looked realistic and modern and they had lots of outdoor action. So you can clearly tell where they were putting that $60 million. But what in the heck was GH doing with their $60 million?! They were the most expensive soap even higher than AMC but yet they looked at times very cheap. Not the whole show but some of their sets. I think that One Life to Live proved you can have a good looking show on a cheaper budget.

[marceline]

Yeah. It's ridiculous that she was allowed to be so incompetent for so long.

[chicklitsandfantasies]

Re: the GH budget I read that it was under budget before and they had extra money to spend which was why they did that carnival in the parking lot a few years back. I did read that ABC cut 20 milllion out of the budget earlier this year.

[doolfan]

So what was the exact budget before they cut 20 million? I wanna say it was over $60 million.

[chicklitsandfantasies]

I don't know what the budget was but I heard they were not over the budget they had.

[doolfan]

I know that All My Children was over budget. Their executive producer must be like MAB. Just spend, spend, spend, spend even though it dosen't benefit the show at all. lol

[Eric83]

All of this is really a moot point right now but I would think moving across country would cost a lot wouldn't it? Maybe ABC never recouped their money from moving it because the ratings didn't go up and they just cut their losses? I have no idea what JHC was like with money but I don't believe the AMC/GH overbudget stuff like I did before.

[Khan]

Frankly, marceline, I think Julie Hanan Carruthers would have been long out the door at AMC if not for the fact that no one wanted to work under Brian Frons. He wasn't the only "suit" who micromanaged his soaps into oblivion, but from most accounts, he was one of the more relentless about it.

[Khan]

I've said before that ALL MY CHILDREN lost a lot of its identity under EP's Julie Hanan Carruthers and Jean Dadario Burke. Neither they nor Brian Frons ever understood that Pine Valley was supposed to be a small town, bearing a small town aesthetic. Instead, they tried to turn the show into daytime's answer to "Sex and the City." As a result, you saw a lot of wardrobe, scenic, and even lighting and camera changes that just didn't make any sense.

[SFK]

AMC began to lose me for those very reasons. It's kind of hard to articulate, but it just didn't feel like All My Children anymore by the late '90s/early 2000s. AMC managed to embrace '80s primetime glamour via wardrobe and sets without ever losing its identity or altering its distinct AMC tone, while its strident efforts to emulate SATC down to quirky dialogue was just sickening and weak.

[SFK]

I was in kindergarten/first grade watching AMC with my mom and grandparents when Jesse, Angie, Greg, Jenny and Tad were on and enjoyed them even as a little one. A few years later, I enjoyed Nico, Cecily, Julie, and Charlie. I enjoyed Emily Ann, Charlotte, Joey, Emily... Hayley, Brian, Terrence, An Li, Taylor... I think Bobby, Anita, Laura, and Scott were the "transition teens" where I suddenly wasn't digging the youth set as much as I had in the past. Yeah, I think that was the end. Maybe because I was a teen now and the writing was beginning to suck in less forgiving ways. I honestly can't think of another teen set that I'd enjoy for the show's final decade. I did get a kick out of Maya and Mookie. Poor Maya got her fair share of kicks out of Mookie too.

I say all that to say that around that time I also realized how much I was missing the characters over 60. Poor health in certain cases kept them away regardless of s/l, but I wish more effort had been made to incorporate the ones who were willing and able to work. '80s/'90s AMC was a perfect soap for the whole family because you often had three generations represented in one episode, often in one scene. I want to watch soaps like that.

[AmandainNC28655]

I always felt that JHC was not a good fit as EP for AMC. I think she did take them overbudget too, but I know Frons micromanaged all the shows big time. I wonder if they had moved AMC and OLTL in the 30 minute arc format that PC was (minus the vampire stuff) if the shows would still be on the air today.

[Vee]

Honestly, I think the "small town aesthetic" of these shows has always only gone so far. The Cortlandts, Chandlers, etc. have all been holding court and doing big business since the early '80s. Not just Fusion and its attached club but Chandler Industries or Enterprises, Cortlandt Electronics, Erica's empire, etc. None of them are going to be holding their board meetings in sleepy bedroom towns. My take on that since I've been watching has always been that Pine Valley, Llanview, etc. have their cozy suburban small town areas, and then their urban metropolises downtown. And that's definitely how it played on OLTL, and to a slightly lesser extent AMC.