Why are soap fans so averse to online streaming?

[John]

Id so be down for 4 episodes a week 30 min soaps. Thats basically close to their dayparts on TV  minus the comericals

[Liberty City]

I think both All My Children and One Life to Live were finally getting their scheduling down... and it could have worked had TOLN not ended production.

[John]

Agreed if production happened now, both would be successful. I also loved the 30 min formats

[DramatistDreamer]

Waaay back in the beginning of this thread I believe most of us had high praise for the content and creative direction of the TOLN soaps. It was clearly the business end of things that killed those shows.

[Errol]

Agreed. Unfortunately, they allegedly never made any money off of the shows because the blew through that $25 million they got from ABRY without ever receiving any additional funding from another source. Allegedly, that's why they sought to sue ABC because then they could recoup some of the money they had to pay ABC for licensing characters. Again, allegedly.

[Vee]

I believe they also never paid a lot of the actors.

[Errol]

This! They should have just gone with launching only one of the soaps instead of both. However, that would have likely meant ABC would have regained the rights back to the unproduced soap sooner. IMO, "All My Children" had its ish together even though it took a minute to hit the root storylines. "One Life to Live" was a mess.

[Vee]

I enjoyed a lot about OLTL 2.0 and thought it was aesthetically cutting-edge and more serious in tone than it had been, as opposed to simply leaning into the tonal issues that eventually sank the Valentini/Carlivati brand at GH and later DAYS. It certainly had any number of pacing and structure issues of its own making re: the holdover storylines from ABC, but those were solvable and I thought the youth set was very strong (if overexposed). The overarching suspense plot only began to actually coalesce into something cohesive and compelling at the very end, and the way they handled Roger Howarth and Trevor St. John's limited availability (confining Todd to a hotel room for weeks) was very goofy. You can fault them for lots of things, but I think a lot of what that show did on Hulu would be the blueprint if it ever returned somehow. That being said, I think AMC 2.0 was very easily the best soap of that year, or that decade frankly.

I understand they could have more easily survived launching just one, but honestly the whole operation struck me as a grift from day one. I knew what the PP guys were, but I chose to enjoy the shows for the shows for as long as they lasted. And I thought the duality of AMC and OLTL, light and dark, again was very well-redefined by pairing them up together. It's how it should still be, IMO.

Edited March 29, 2022 by Vee

[David_Vickers]

ABC should bring back ONE LIFE and AMC, but not 30 min. 30 mins isn't enough time for either show.  Storylines are rushed, at a stand still or the same ol people shown all the time, per B&B.  45 min without ads would be okay.  Maybe one should go online, and the other brought back on broadcast replacing GMA3 which I think is redundant, repetitive and boring and the hosts lack personality especially TJ Holmes who seems robotic or copying Obama.  IF The View, which I still like and watch continues on a downslide, maybe they could drop it as well.   Maybe the planned primetime AMC spin0ff Pine Valley should just be an AMC return, or just move it to daytime instead of the crowded primetime schedule. 

Another possilbily, bringing back some soaps on Paramount+, Netflix, Hulu or Prime, even HBO Max or Disney +. 

[allmc2008]

Don't base your opinion that the half hour doesn't work based on Bold. Go on YouTube and watch Ryan's Hope or something like that. Edge of Night might be  better as an example. Trust me, it works.

[janea4old]

I understand your point.  But it would depend on if the future streaming of whatever show would include time for advertising or not.

Currently B&B has a 30-minute slot on CBS broadcast television. But with the advertising, there is actually only 18 minutes of actual show. Eighteen minutes.

In contrast, 30-minute TV slots of Ryan's Hope or Edge of Night, back in the old days, had less advertising and more show.  I'm not sure how much of a difference from B&B, but I'd bet it's quite a few minutes difference.

[te.]

They were around 21-22 minutes, which I think is an alright length. I've started watching Dark Shadows during the pandemic and in all honestly, watching it when I'm eating breakfast/getting ready is perfect. If they ever do another attempt at a daily soap on streaming I think it's a good length - it all depends on what you do with the time really.

[DramatistDreamer]

A type of streaming called FAST is becoming a big deal now. More and more entertainment companies are using this platform to stream their entertainment titles from their libraries, particularly their classic holdings.

I have seen several reports on this over the last couple months. There have even been a few video seminars and teleconferences on the matter. It will be interesting to see how many more companies large and medium, even small companies get into it.

Years ago, I mentioned Sony's Crackle and some people were dismissive. Now all the major entertainment companies have either got their own version of Crackle or are in the process of building one.

SonyCrackle, IMDB TV, Tubi, etc. are basically versions of the FAST model.

B&B is now using YouTube's platform to stream classic episodes. Days Of Our Lives is dipping their toes into YouTube (it remains to be seen whether it will include more). Will any other companies that have produced soaps get onto the FAST model to start streaming their classic soap titles?

Once upon a time when I proposed this, I was told it was impossible due to music rights. I made the rebuttal that it was possible if a show could work out an agreement, maybe to promise not to sell episodes (like SoapClassics did) or maybe provide a link to the companies where people can buy downloads or stream the music heard in the show.

Well whatever B&B managed to work out, they are clearly able to stream episodes with original music, including popular music intact.

A onetime powerful soaps producing powerhouse like P&G, who currently advertises their products during B&B's YouTube channel-- will someone there finally see sense and build their own YouTube channel dedicated to their entertainment titles?

Edited March 30, 2022 by DramatistDreamer

[BoldRestless]

What does FAST model stand for? Google is giving all types of results.

 

YouTube has a built in method for dealing with music rights. Copyright holders can upload their works and YouTube automatically scans new uploads for it to get a match. If there is a match, YouTube implements whatever the copyright holder wants to do. It could be that they allow the song to be played but take a cut of the ad revenue (it seems to be what B&B does), or that the video is allowed to be uploaded but must be muted (worldwide or certain countries), or that the video is blocked entirely (worldwide or just certain countries). If another streaming service picked up soaps they'd have to create their own system to ensure proper use of the music rights. It's much easier on a large platform like YouTube, but then the rub is that they're only collecting ad revenue and can't charge a subscription or per episode fee (which is great for us viewers since we get the content free!).

[te.]

Free ad-supported tv.