DC #616: ABC Cancels All My Children and One Life to Live

On today’s Daytime Confidential podcast Luke Kerr, Jamey Giddens, Jillian Bowe, Regan Cellura, Melodie Aikles and J Bernard Jones discuss ABC’s decision to cancel two of its three soaps, All My Children and One Life to Live. During the episode the DC gang shares their reactions to the sad news that the two long-running serials have been canceled. What path led to each show’s cancellation? Who is responsible or shares in the blame? They recap the progression of reports since Jamey first reported, back in February, ABC would be making a major decision in April. Did All My Children throw its actors under the bus? Susan Lucci has been a class act through it all, while Robin Strasser’s poignant hotline message to fans pulled at the heart strings. Might Oprah be interested in saving AMC and OLTL by bringing them to the OWN network? Then each in the group reveals how they’d like to see each soap wrap up its run. However, there are differing opinions on how to tie everything up on each of the shows. Melodie’s ending for AMC is all about Erica Kane while you’re not going to want to miss Jamey’s tongue-in-cheek suggestion for Viki and Dorian on OLTL. After All My Children goes off the air in September it will be replaced by The Chew, a cooking talk show hosted by Mario Batali, Clinton Kelly, Carla Hall, Michael Symon and Daphne Oz. When One Life to Live ends its run in January of 2012 it will be replaced by The Revolution, a show about health and lifestyle transformations featuring Tim Gunn and Kimberly Locke. Readers and listeners have been calling the Daytime Confidential Hotline with their reaction to the cancellation news. We’ve included some of those messages on this podcast, while the remaining calls will be attached to future podcasts. This is truly the end of an era.