Monday, January 10, 2011

ONE WAY TO BRING A SHOW BACK FROM CANCELLATION: IT WORKED FOR THE OTHER GUYS... WHY NOT A SOAP?
By Alina Adams

Seth MacFarlane's animated sitcom, Family Guy, was canceled in 2002, only to return to the air in 2005 after DVD sales of the series went through the roof.

The same thing happened to Futurama; canceled in 2003 and revived (on a different network) in 2008, due to strong DVD sales.

In other words, no matter how many passionate, articulate letters fans write in support of their favorite shows, the only thing that matters to TPTB is money. Are people willing to spend money on our product? If they are, let's give them more. If they aren't...

Unfortunately, there are no DVDs of canceled soaps available with which to make this same point.

On the other hand, on January 1, 2011, Pocket Books released a new paperback edition of the As The World Turns tie-in novel, The Man From Oakdale (see details, below).



If enough ATWT fans (and GL fans, and AW fans - any soap fans, really, who want to demonstrate their buying power) buy copies of the book, it could well serve to get the attention of the networks in the same way that positive DVD sales of Family Guy and Futurama did.

Please take a look, and help spread the word.

(Full disclosure: As the author of The Man From Oakdale, I stand to potentially make some money from the book's sales. I wanted to be honest and up-front about that, like I am about pretty much everything with you all. However, I enjoyed writing the book so much - Henry! Tom & Margo! Craig & Sierra! Frannie & Sabrina! Lucy! Lucinda! Lily! Paul! -and I really do sincerely think ATWT fans currently still mourning their lost show will find it a fun read. In addition, the fact is, other shows HAVE been brought back from the dead when fans proved willing to put their money where their passions are. Why shouldn't it happen for the soaps, too?)

1 comment:

Lois said...

I can only mention about GL since that was the only one I watched (the only other soap I ever watched was AW for the record LOL)... my own personal opinion is now, after all this time, I really don't want to see GL come back. It will just be too different, because people have moved on to other shows or out of acting or whatnot. I don't think it would work too much if the roles of the familiar characters were recasted, or if there were all or mostly all new characters, it would be too different, and given how networks work anymore, I bet they wouldn't give it the time needed to build the audience. It's like if a new show doesn't have the ratings the first couple of weeks, just don't give it the time to try to find it. Maybe ATWT would have a better time for it since it's more recent of a cancellation, but to all those I've seen with the hope that GL still can come back, I just think it's been too long for it to have been away to even consider it.

Lois