All My Children AMC: The Prospect Park Era (old production thread)

[JONNYSBRO]

ABC I repeat will never bring back all my children or oltl. They are very happy with their current shows the view, chew which is doing stellar and GH doing great has nothing to do with them bringing back expensive shows. Katie will be replaced by another syndicated talk show. Very rare do networks bring back cancelled shows to their network

[SFK]

While I don't *think* that ABC will bring back AMC and OLTL as we once knew them on the network, I've firmly embraced a, "Never say, 'Never'" approach to the whims of the entertainment industry at large. AMC moving to L.A., PP's "Holiday Miracle", and the GH three assuming new roles have firmly changed my view of the "impossible". I no longer believe in "nevers", it's "ifs" and "whens" from here on out.

That said, I do not *want* these shows, especially AMC, to ever be revived under the FV/RC brand. My biggest concern about ABC relinquishing the rights is that FV/RC will start [!@#$%^&*] with AMC. Hands off!

[DRW50]

I think the main broadcast networks are out of the soap business for good. They will string along the few they have left, but I don't know how much longer even that will last. If The Revolution hadn't failed, GH would be on the scrap heap. I used to think maybe they'd change their minds eventually, but I don't now.

It's going to take a while to forget just how many in this "industry" wanted so desperately for these shows to fail. They aren't the reason the shows failed, but they had a hand in it.

It makes me sad to think if PP had just done more stories about how hot and wild it is to be raped, the hacks who have run any journalism in this industry into the ground would have been totally in their corner.

That's probably true for TV in general, but I think it's especially true for PP. The coverage of the shows and fan neuroses over the shows was never a pretty sight. People never had a chance to breathe.

[marceline]

The thing that gets me is that the people who worked the hardest to derail this new venture are the same ones who swear the loudest that that soaps are a viable genre. They're the ones who take offense when some actor gives an interview and doesn't mention the soap role they had for 32 weeks 20 years ago. They're the ones who are the first to boycott, start online petitions, and tell the rest of us not to voice complaints about diversity, misogyny or just plain old craptastic writing because "if you don't support the remaining soaps soon they won't be any."

Any other production company that might have even been mildly considering these shows will take one look at what PP had to put up with and file the whole thing under "not worth the trouble."

I will always be grateful for the fact that those two never got to so much as lay a finger on AMC or any of its characters. Especially now that Ron's new fetish is proving that he's the Holy Emperor of ABC Soaps Past and Present.

[allmc2008]

Around what time would the press release be if there is one??

[marceline]

End of the business day. You dump the news, roll the phone directly to voicemail and go to the bar downstairs for drinks.

[DRW50]

They don't care about soaps. They care about themselves. That's not true of everyone who has a major soap website - I think We Love Soaps is a wonderful site, and while I've bashed Michael Fairman, I think he cares about soaps too. But people like Logan, Hinsey, Nellie Olsen, the DC crowd, they just want to feel validated. They'd rather have no soaps on the air as long as they can spout off about what daytime is, how they knew the right people and they said the right things, don't blame them, and hey, buy my book on how to save soaps.

The bright side is that there's a decent chance eventually someone will come along and succeed with a 3-4 day a week soap format, and they will do so while shutting out any of the vultures feeding on what is left of this genre. They will be left to talk to give free drinks to Justin Bruening, have Tony Geary yet again vent about how much everything sucks, or make hyena sounds because Ron and Frank brougnt in Justus Bolding for a two minute cameo.

[applcin]

Assuming they knew where to find the soaps or even that they were back. I noticed some folks posting on the FB page when the soaps had already been on for a while that it was the first they'd become aware of it.

I'm not understanding the lack of communication from PP, not because I think they owe the viewers anything but simply for the sake of PR & marketing and keeping good will amongst the viewers. On the one hand, they are confusing and alienating the viewers who are trying to keep up with any news while also making themselves essentially invisible to people not keeping up with things online. The only reasons that make sense to me for the lack of news is either that PP truly has not decided what to do, or they have decided to stop and are putting off announcing it. Whatever the mental state or emotional investment of the various people posting on their AMC FB page, that page seems to be one of PP's main conduits for mutual communication, feedback, news, etc., so to 1) not post any news whatsoever (even if it's just to say things are still on hiatus) and 2) post trivia and guessing games while ignoring a page full of the same question over and over is just bad PR. They've been on tenuous ground with some viewers to begin with and they're not only exacerbating that but risking alienating their supporters and forging a reputation that TPTB of this company have literally no idea what they're doing.

If the show is done, tell us it's done. If they're trying to bring the show back, tell us that. If they're working on it but don't know when it will be back, tell us that. They're getting a lot more flack and negativity back from people for not responding than they would be for just coming out and telling the truth, whatever it may be. Just say something.

[allmc2008]

Yah. One of my teachers from HS was a OLTL diehard. She watched from 1979 to the final episode. I visited her after school during week 5 or whenever to see how she liked it and she did not know it was back. I told her it is on Hulu. Of course she said "were to I get Hula". I tried explaining to to her but she didn't understand.

The receptionist at my doctors office is an ABC dihard and I told her the show will be on OWN. She couldn't figure out the "Hula" either. The next time I saw her I asked her what she thought and she said that she tried finding it on her cable and she was told me she was flipping channels and said they are just doing the same old thing as the final ABC run. I had my suspensions so I asked her exactly what was going on then I found out she was watching episodes from SoapNet. She tuned in in the middle of a scene then tuned out; at least I think that is what happened considering she should have noticed the SoapNet loga on the bottom plus the god-aweful promos.

She also didn't understand why the Llanview 3 were playing different roles so I had to explain to her what happened.

A lady at work basically suffered from a combo of the two.

Thankfully none of them went of Facebook.

[CBRVA83]

What time is the end of the business day?

[allmc2008]

Ugh. So around 5ish??

[marceline]

3-5 PM EST. In politics, it's referred to as the Friday News Dump. You drop your unpleasant news on Friday so it gets lost in the weekend news cycle. Obviously this is a different situation because the soapverse doesn't really have a news cycle and most of the people involved will just make up whatever [!@#$%^&*] they want to say but the basic premise is the same: drop the news and then go home. That gives PP the weekend to see the reaction and figure out what if any response to give.

[Juliajms]

How funny. As if they are even relevant enough to need to duck and run at this point.

[allmc2008]

+1

[marceline]

Agreed. Still, it's PR 101. If you have bad news to share and you don't feel like dealing with questions about it, dump it on Friday. Of course, if there is news, I could see PP sharing it with the mainstream entertainment and/or business press first since they got decent coverage from them in the beginning and as much as we forget it, this was an experiment in online viewing that people were watching for legitimate business reasons.

All of this is speculation on my part of course. For all we know this "news" is just another rumor by the thirsty soap press.