Soap fans were really on board when Prospect Park told them that it would work hard to bring back both All My Children and One Life to Live. Both shows were axed by ABC in 2011 after extremely long runs on the network. Back then it was believed that the fans were waning and it was time to change their daytime programing. ABC hasn’t exactly done any better with the shows that replaced the soaps and we all figured bringing the shows back to life on the internet would be a huge hit.
After a few weeks online thanks to Hulu, Prospect Park has already changed the way that the shows are broadcast. Instead of a new episode of each, four days a week they’ve cut that in half. All My Children will now air on Monday and Wednesday while One Life to Life will have new episodes drop on Tuesday and Thursday. Apparently the data is showing that even the most diehard of soap fans supposedly doesn’t have an hour a day to invest in the new internet programming.
I find that interesting because when AMC and OLTL were on the air they took up two hours of time each day and back then the fans had no problem watching their shows! I think it’s more like a lot of longtime fans just can’t get behind having to be online to watch their old shows. I originally thought that this format would probably work great and suck in new fans as well. Now I’m not so sure. Do you think daytime will find its place online and after a rocky start it’ll thrive? Are you watching these revived shows at all? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below!