Did They Save Our Soaps?

   By SheSpeaksTeam  Feb 19, 2013

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To all the fans who had a hard time saying goodbye to their soaps, there appears to be a ray of hope on the horizon. ABC’s long-running soap operas All My Children and One Life to Live were cancelled a couple of years ago to the shock and dismay of their (albeit waning) legions of faithful fans. But now the fan-based movement to save the soaps may be paying off with plans to run the shows on the internet this spring.

Time magazine reports about the soaps set to air every weekday this spring on a whole new platform. The L.A. based production company Prospect Park has managed to purchase the licensing fees from ABC for both One Life to Live and All My Children and have promised fans they will continue airing new shows with the same quality and in the same format, the only difference being that they will only be available for viewing through the internet.

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Fans of the shows will be able to view their soaps through iTunes, Hulu, or Prospect Park’s website The OnLine Network. The shows will run 30 minutes in length rather than the hour long programming of the past.

Questions have arisen over whether these shows have lost their casual fans to some other activity or whether those with slow internet or no internet connections will still find a way to watch the shows. Carolyn Hinsey, columnist for Soap Opera Digest, explains why she believes true soap fans will find a way to make the new internet format work. Hinsey says, “A lot of viewers didn’t have cable either, and when TV started going in the direction where you needed a cable box, they got cable. My grandmother had the antenna with the Reynolds Wrap on the end of it but if she was alive when you needed cable to watch soaps, she would have gotten cable. So I think a lot of older people will figure out a way to watch it online. And they don’t need 3 million viewers to be possible, as a half-hour internet soap. If you get a million viewers you’re one of the biggest internet hits around.”

Were you a fan of these soaps? What do you think of the soaps All My Children and One Life to Live returning via the internet?

Would you watch your favorite soap if it were only shown on the internet?