Last Updated on August 17, 2011
For months fans have been speculating as to which soap opera would be next to get the ax. Two of ABC’s sudsers, All My Children and One Life to Live have remained at the top of the rumor list.
Today, ABC answered the big cancellation question with a surprise: both shows are fading away.
One Life to Live, which has typically been at the bottom of the ratings since CBS pulled the plug on Guiding Light and As the World Turns, premiered in 1968. All My Children, whose most well-known star is Susan Lucci, debuted in 1970.
All My Children will wrap up production this September. One Life to Live will air its final episode in January of 2012.
The two shows will be replaced, the network says, with less expensive talk shows. One, which will be called Chew, will be about nutrition and diet. The other, The Revolution, will focus on health, weight loss and “lifestyle transformations.” The Revolution will devote each week to the efforts of one woman trying to lose weight over a five-month period.
When those two shows disappear, they will leave only four on the air: ABC’s General Hospital, CBS’s The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful, and NBC’s Days of Our Lives.
You can blame the success of shows like The View, The Talk and Let’s Make a Deal. Daytime talk and game shows are cheaper to produce than soap operas, which employ a staff of writers and a large cast.
Are you a soap fan? Do you watch either of these two latest ratings victims?
The only soap I was ever really hooked on was “Young and the Restless”. My DIL was staying with us while the son was in Iraq and she watched several soaps; I got lured into Y&R and watched it for a couple of years. I don’t watch soaps now, nor talk shows. But the only time our TV is on during the day is when Cliff and I watch the evening shows I’ve put on the DVR (Cliff works evenings). Our favorite show is “The Good Wife”; we can hardly wait for each episode. Best show we’ve ever seen!