The Internet Could Not Save 'All My Children'

In 2011, the long-running ABC DIS soap operas All My Children (ran for 41 years) and One Life to Live (43 years) were canceled. Almost immediately, the Hollywood-based production company Prospect Park swooped in and bought the shows. After a difficult resuscitation and a move to online streaming (primarily on Hulu), the soaps began their new lives in April of this year. Now, just seven months later, the shows are being canceled again.

Another star of the show, Cady McClain, corroborated Morgan's announcement on Facebook. She posted, "If you aren't hearing anything about the ending of AMC as we know it, it's really out of shock. I am also trying to allow [Prospect Park] to have the moment to contact all the actors and explain what is and has been going on with AMC, and then gather themselves to try and explain it all to you, the fans."

Many applauded the soaps' move to online distribution, given the success of streaming services like Hulu, which streamed both shows, and Netflix NFLX, which is the definitive industry leader. While original programming like House of Cards and Orange Is the New Black have been highly successful for the company, the Prospect Park soap operas, mired in legal battles, financial troubles, and decades of daytime network precedence, just couldn't cut it in the new digital medium.

So why exactly is the soap opera endangered? There are currently eight American soap operas in production, with only four of those being the classic-style daytime soap, namely The Young and the Restless, The Bold and the Beautiful, Days of Our Lives, and General Hospital. Abigail De Kosnik, editor of the book The Survival of the Soap Opera, proposes a sociological answer: "The old model of soap opera was built around an ideal viewer who no longer exists: the bored housewife. But since the 1950s, women have entered the workplace in droves. There are stay-at-home moms, but they are wealthier, and they regard their ability to dedicate themselves to their family's domestic concerns to be a privilege, even a marker of status."

Next Evolution?

Spanish-language channels like Univision and Telemundo, the latter of which is owned by Comcast CMCSA, have seen success with telenovelas, which are comparable to soap operas but are not exactly the same. Telenovelas, for example, are generally designed as limited-run programs.

The following article is from one of our external contributors. It does not represent the opinion of Benzinga.