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ATWT canceled

posted 15 years ago by rnigma-1
2 replies | jump to latest

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_tv_as_the_world_turns

CBS canceled "As the World Turns" on Tuesday, putting the company that coined the phrase "soap operas" out of the business of making daytime dramas for the first time in 76 years.

"As the World Turns" has been on the air since 1956 and televised its 13,661st episode Tuesday. Its last episode will be next September, the network said.

It's the second daytime drama CBS has canceled in a year, after "Guiding Light." Both shows were produced by a subsidiary of Procter & Gamble, the company for which the term "soap operas" was created because it used the shows to hawk products like Ivory soap and Duz laundry detergent.

Daytime dramas have been fading as a genre for years with more women joining the work force and the increased number of channels offering alternatives like news, talk, reality and game shows. In tough economic times, paying casts, producers and writers proved prohibitive to networks when there were cheaper alternatives.

The cancellation will leave CBS with only two daytime dramas: "The Young and the Restless" and "The Bold and the Beautiful."

Through the years, actors Marisa Tomei, Meg Ryan, Parker Posey and James Earl Jones have appeared on "As the World Turns." The show follows families in the Illinois town of Oakdale.

"It's a hell of a Christmas present," said actress Eileen Fulton, who will mark 50 years playing the character Lisa Grimaldi on the show. Her character has been through nine marriages and Fulton was hoping for a 10th before the signoff.

"I'm just very sad," she said. "I'm sad for all of the people who work out there in Brooklyn (where the show is filmed). We're a family. I hate to be split up. It's like a divorce."

ATWT was the first half-hour soap, launched in an era when soaps were still 15 minutes long, as they were in radio. Many of its longtime viewers remember the announcer opening the show with "And now, for the next thirty minutes... As the World Turns."

[–] mamacassfan 15 years ago

Thanks for the info. It was the only daytime soap that I was kind of "into" off and on for the last couple of years, though the last few months have been kind of a drag in Oakdale. Nothing has really had my interest since the pre-rehab Carly storyline.

I'm surprised CBS would make this announcement so early. Ratings will probably take a dip. Why would viewers invest in stories that will end in less than a year? Still a little sad to see it go.

[–] grantch 15 years ago

P&G has by accident or design removed itself from the soap opera business. Odd when that company was once the dominant producer of daytime serials. ATWT's "twin" soap "The Edge of Night" which premiered in the half-hour format 3 hours later on the same April 1956 day was destroyed in the ratings because P&G kept moving it earlier in airtime causing it to lose the original audience, then moving it to another network whose affiliates did not want to broadcast a network show at 4pm and either did not carry it or rebroadcast it in morning hours. "Search for Tomorrow" had similar problems. "Another World" despite its great extremely vocal fan base was abandoned by P&G. The demise of "Guiding Light" still angers devout viewers. I am sure Agnes Nixon is relieved today that she attached her soap star to AMC and OLTL on ABC rather than CBS or NBC which over the years have treated soaps very poorly, in essence causing the cancellation of many audience-favorite daytime serials. P&G management has treated daytime entertainment shabbily for several decades, the very industry it had virtually created. ATWT will be missed.