Soaps Fade To Black: ABC Cancels All My Children & One Life To Live

I remember when I was home sick, as a kid, burning through the day watching soap operas.  General Hospital, All My Children - even Ryan's Hope.  These were odd shows, moving at a snail's pace through claustrophobic sets and dense (and at times inexplicable) melodrama.  They worked  - culturally and financially - in an era of three major networks, PBS, a few local stations, and radio. 

But today, stay-at-homes (and their sick children) have a host of entertainment options.  Some television content - can you spell infomercial? - costs TV stations zero dollars to produce.  And that's just the beginning.  If you can hack out a television program about people who write parking tickets, why spend cash on Susan Lucci?

Why indeed.  It turns out that ABC couldn't provide a satisfying answer to this question.  So it is canceling All My Children and One Life to Live.  One Life has been on for 43 years; Children for 41. 

It is replacing these soaps with, among other things, a show called Chew.  And yes, it is about food.  I haven't watch AMC in years but - much like the day I pondered the loss of Heller, Ehrman and Michael Reese Hospital - this is yet another moment in which I watch my past dissolve.  No tears, but a blog post, at the least, to pay my respects.

Comments

[Patrick S. O'Donnell]

I confess to not understanding why otherwise intelligent folks watch such stuff. Many years ago while attending college I was walking through the student center in which there was a "lounge" room with a TV and about fifty students were staring intently at the screen at some soap opera program around the lunch hour. It was stunningly beautiful outside that day: sunny, not too hot, slightest ocean breeze (the university sits alongside the Pacific ocean in Santa Barbara), and so I imagined a zillion other things one might have done with one's time....

[Atlanta Roofing]

This makes me sad. I never watched 'One Life To Live' and was never a die hard 'All My Children' fan, but my baby sitter was. I still remember how for many summers every day she made us lunch just before the show and all of us kids would sit and watch it with her while eating. It was an event for us every day. And as kids it gave us a way to tell time during the day. I'm glad both shows had a good, long run.

[memorial websites]

Now what will we watch when we bunk off work? I'm devastated­. Guess I'm stuck with game shows now...or will have to start going to work ;)

[jb007]

It was stunningly beautiful outside that day: sunny, not too hot, slightest ocean breeze (the university sits alongside the Pacific ocean in Santa Barbara), and so I imagined a zillion other things one might have done with one's time....

[Antivirus Software Alert]

I’m really disgusted with ABC and Brian Frons. We have the Food Network and Cooking Channel for your food replacement show and there are so many channels with reality shows already.