General Hospital Spoilers: Dangerous Times Ahead For Daytime Soaps – Wally Kurth Echoes Soaps Fans Worst Fears
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General Hospital and Days of Our Lives star Wally Kurth appeared on “The Freddy and Alyssa Show” and seemed to echo what older soap fans have feared. Could the COVID-19 pandemic be the end for daytime soaps?
General Hospital Spoilers – They Will Run Out Of Shows
At the moment, all four remaining soaps have some shows stockpiled. Unfortunately, there are not nearly enough to outlast this pandemic. Although CBS and ABC are running flashback Friday episodes to try and extend the time before running out, they can only stretch these shows so far.
ABC has even begun adding flashbacks into daily shows to try and buy some time. Thankfully, for Days of Our Lives viewers, they tape about six months ahead of schedule and are in the best shape at the moment. While this is good for Days ratings, unless production resumes, the other three shows will be out of episodes. It seems that The Bold and Beautiful and The Young and The Restless may be the first to run out.
GH Spoilers – Fans Could Lose Interest
Let’s be honest, the longtime star of both Days of Our Lives and General Hospital was in daytime television when the O.J. Simpson trial took over daytime tv. Months of soap operas were missed and at the time there were 11 daytime soap operas on the air.
However, ratings declined due to the trial interruption and the industry never bounced back. Networks tried to add other soaps to the lineup at that time that they thought would spark interest but most of them didn’t last much over three years. Unfortunately, soaps fans seemed to decline when forced to miss their shows due to no fault of their own. Could this happen again?
General Hospital Spoilers – Are Today’s Soap Fans More Dedicated?
GH and Days’ Kurth comments that today’s soap viewers are dedicated to their soaps and hope that the remaining four shows will sustain because of these fans. Some of them have been there from the beginning and refuse to bail on something that isn’t the network’s fault. However, some fans are also asking for things that the network cannot feasibly do.
New #DOOL Days of Our Lives Spoilers: Li Shin Arrives in Salem – What Does He Know About Stefan DiMera?https://t.co/5a0SgkhNyK
— SOS/CTS/HH (@SoapOperaSpy) April 17, 2020
Some General Hospital fans have suggested running some classic episodes but according to former GH programming director, Nathan Varni, that would cause issues because the classic episodes contain music that the show would have to pay royalties for using. With the soap opera’s budget already being low, this would place more strain on them and cause cuts in other areas to cover.
This is true, as Kurth stated, “dangerous” times for daytime soaps, can any of the remaining four survive if this pandemic state continues to keep the stars from being able to work? Will these four shows be able to bounce back where others have failed? After all, these are apparently the best of the best since they have been the only ones to survive to this point.
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The current pandemic situation is very scary & hope for everyone’s safety. They have to have to do 2 repeat episodes a week. GH has inserted all those flashbacks to help spread their episode out longer.
I think that the networks may need to put reruns of the soaps on when the episodes run out. However I do believe that the fans will stay true to the four remaining ones. I mean other shows take months between them or are put online once a year and they still have fans who wait for them. I think that the networks should put some of the past soaps back on TV at this time and then bring them back. I would love to see All My Children, One Life to Live, Another World, Guiding Light, and others come back.
I agree with him up to a point—as far as what is quoted from Nathan Varni that’s dumb. There has been music on the new episodes too and royalties for old music don’t cost any more than they do on new music. Also there are new fans that won’t be bothered so much by reruns because it will be new to them. I do think maybe the GH shows are just on videotape not film and they do degrade so that might be the real issue. The CBS soaps existed during the OJ trial too, YR started in 1974 I think and BB in 1987.