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[Matt]

If I'm not mistaken, DC was a P&G production for a time until P&G sold its interest in the show (or, at least, P&G was one of the production companies involved along with Sony). P&G has also been known to produce the People's Choice Awards in the past.

[JER Soaps Fan]

Amazingly, no one has answered my question.

Really, what separates the primetime and daytime budgets other than sunset? Some primetime shows DO Have lower ratings than soaps yet they have great budgets. I want answers!!!

[dc11786]

Thanks. I'll have to try that.

Telenovelas are simply cheaper to produce than soaps, especially considering they are now being filmed by location rather than by episode. Plus there aren't any name actors so theres no contracts to renew and no money to be offered. The show is being translated and not really written so the 'translators' do not work for the Writer's Guild and are being paid pennies. All the money is really being put into production where as other soaps put into veteran cast, writers, and filming by episode.

I want to say that a week of a novela costs only $500,000, but I'm not sure how much a week of a daytime soap currently costs.

I haven't looked at the articles on "Desperate Housewives"/MyNetworkTV but I think that the MyNetworkTV deal is for weekend reruns. Lifetime is pairing "Desperate Housewives" with their telenovela "Bianca: Journey to Paradise" with Rachel Ward, Virginia Williams (ex-OLTL) and Stephen Martines (ex-GH & GL). Funny how both actors to play Tony Santos on "Guiding Light" have ended up on telenovelas. Jordi Vilasuso is in "Fashion House" long with another "GL" alum Ethan Erickson, who played Quint and Nola's son J Chamberlain in the mid-1990s. Erickson is playing John Cotter, the main spoiler to Michelle & Luke's relationship.

The current Soap Opera Weekly has articles on MyNetwork TV in their primetime section. There's a synopsis for "Desire" and "Fashion House" as well as interviews with Chris DeRose, Nicole Pulliam and Donna Feldman. All three have some soap experience, albeit minor.

[dc11786]

According to an article found at http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/C...lay=Cover+Story, these primetime shows do have smaller budgets than daytime soap operas. Daytime soaps tend to cost 1-2 million a week where as the cost of a week worth of novelas is 500,000-600,000. As I said above its all about how the money is spent.

[bellcurve]

I wonder if that figure includes Bo Derek and Morgan Fairchild's salaries. Obviously, they aren't gonna shell out $2 Million for them, but $500-600K is not that much money in terms of actors or production. I bet Bo Derek and Morgan Fairchild are being paid on a special FOX/NewsCorp payroll.

And the production values look ridiculously slick. It doesn't look like they are doing a live-tape to film-look thing.

Their taping schedule sounds familar to THE CITY's, which(if I remember correctly) taped a lot of scenes in one day for what could span for about a week(because of the use of large sets).

[JER Soaps Fan]

Ooooh, now I f'ing get it. Okay. I didn't consider the huge vets salaries for soaps. Makes sense. I guess if soaps could somehow cut everyone but the most integral characters and realize that the days of 30+ characters are over, they, too, could have slick production values.

[dc11786]

That article was mainly about "Desire" so there might be a bit more money being pumped into "Fashion House", but they are also probably saving money because they have taped by location.

I also think that the writer thing is a big thing too, but the article mentions that. I know I've read that Claire they kept costs down on "Ryan's Hope" was by changing their writing staff a lot so they didn't have to pay the sub writers a lot of money.