NBC’s Classic Soap THE DOCTORS To Run On Retro TV Later This Year!

[All My Shadows]

That's what I figured, SFK. I was sure it was acquired by a bigger company, but I guess not. I've deduced out that Generations and Passions are probably under NBCUniversal, while Sunset Beach is possibly CBS (along with other Spelling faves like Dynasty, Melrose, and Love Boat).

The streaming thing really is a no-brainer. The entire series of Dark Shadows was on Netflix for a while, so it's not like it's unheard of to showcase at least 1200 episodes of any given soap at a time. The folks behind the ATWT and GL DVDs even streamed a "bonus" episode on their website each time a new DVD set was released, IIRC. I just get really frustrated at the thought of all of the stuff that does exist just sitting around when there are plenty of us who would gladly pay to see it.

[SFK]

Exactly! And it's not like we're even asking for freebies. I have happily purchased seasons of series on our Roku. To not only have them forever, but to spare us the clutter of DVDs. Would twenty bucks for sixty episodes of an half-hour soap be unreasonable?

[SFK]

Chris, my mistake was believing that those episodes were there for good. I skipped around, and I forget what program I was using, but I'd download, say, four random episodes of Texas at a time. I started around the time Iris was about to discover that Alex was still alive. An embarrassment of riches. If they'd offer such for seventies AMC and OLTL, I'd probably lose my job and never leave the house.

[cassadine1991]

Didn't the ATWT and GL DVDs have certain scenes that were cut from the DVD that were in the original television broadcast?

[P.J.]

Not that I know of. Music was replaced due to copyrights though.

[KMan101]

I'd gladly pay to watch just about any old soap, so I can't believe no one is bothering to stream them.

AOL's streaming was a fantastic idea that was a bit before it's time, honestly. NOW is when they should have been doing that.

I feel like the soaps do well enough on Hulu. They keep adding foreign soaps (Coronation Street, Neighbours) and once aired Another World. And despite what some what to say, AMC and OLTL were hardly failures on there. Maybe it just wasn't enough at the end of the day but they were clearly popular.

P&G needs to be coaxed into streaming. I can't believe they don't care and are sitting on so many soaps.

Same for AMC and OLTL.

And Sony with Days & Y&R. There's simply no reason, IMO, most of these shows aren't available online.

I'd assume they just don't think an audience is there for them but I'd say there is.

[Aback]

These classic shows aren't online simply because, if that was the case, no one would watch the current episodes.

[KMan101]

I don't agree with that. And besides, only four soaps are left anyway. I highly doubt having AMC or GL online would cause people to stop watching Days of Our Lives, Y&R, GH and B&B. Now if given a choice between classic GH or current GH, I'd agree with that.

[alphanguy74]

Just get yourself some rabbit ears and watch away!

[allmc2008]

Even if that would happen that may actually force the writers to up their game a little, which, is something that needs to be done.

[marceline]

I wonder if music rights might also be an issue. I can think of a number of primetime series that needed to have significant changes to music before they could be distributed online or DVD.

[All My Shadows]

How much could music rights be an issue for daytime soaps, though? I know in the 80s, every flaming super couple had their own power ballad theme, but was licensed music used so much that it would be a major problem?

[titan1978]

On GH during Monty they used popular music often, sometimes in the background at Kelly's. Depending on how they used the music, sometimes it can't be removed without also losing dialog if characters were speaking while the music was playing.

[SFK]

Ha, makes me think of Sammy-Jo and her muzak Thriller blasting from the boom box on her shoulder.

Soaps very often used pop music in the background. Not sure when that died out. I remember a long ending montage on GH in the '90s with Whitney Houston's Shoop song from Waiting to Exhale. ATWT used Count On Me from the same movie for the end of their anniversary montage that same year. Before you knew it, Starbucks music had taken over.

[EricMontreal22]

The brief GL and ATWT DVD releases (man I wish i had picked up a couple) replaced some music with generic music for this reason. It could easily and cheaply be done, if needed. (Tangent--the N America release ofthe excellent UK Queer as Folk removes nearly all of its music for generic techno instrumentals--so infuriating as the music for the UK original was a huge part of the show.)