From TVGuide Magazine/GL TV
As the World Turns Boss Talks Cancellation
by Michael Logan December 14, 2009 12:53 PM EST
Procter & Gamble is suddenly out of the soap-opera biz-and that's harder to believe than an evil-twin plot! The monolithic corporation, which invented serialized drama over 70 years ago to sell cleaning products to housewives, announced last week that its last surviving soap, As the World Turns, had been cancelled by CBS. The 53-year-old warhorse-which launched the careers of Meg Ryan, Marisa Tomei, Julianne Moore and many more Hollywood hotshots-will leave the air next September. Executive producer Chris Goutman spoke with TV Guide Magazine about getting the ax, and the possibility that ATWT will find a home elsewhere.
This is a big, bad blow to everybody in the soap business
.
It's staggering having two shows canceled in such a short span of time.
Was this out of the blue for you?
It's a shame and it's a shock because we absolutely thought we had a shot at another year. Our show is not ready to go because, creatively, we're on a roll. We still have exciting stories in the works and we're sticking to them. We're not ready to start inviting back old favorites and do the nostalgia thing.
So how do you proceed from here? TeleNext has announced that it will try to place the show elsewhere, but that may not be your ultimate reality.
We just continue to tell good stories and we'll see how the efforts go in terms of shopping the show around. There will be plenty of time to bring in whomever we want from the past. I think we're in a very, very good place and we're excited by everything that's going on, but the numbers in November just didn't budge. Listen, all the soaps are facing competition from game shows and talk shows that have different business models. We're a labor-intensive enterprise and we cost more money-that's basically it. The bottom line is the profit margin and that's what we're all fighting. But I do believe there is still an audience for this show.
These numbers are a funny thing. Showtime is currently doing backflips about the ratings for Dexter, which are the highest the channel has gotten in 10
years-yet those numbers, like most big cable hits, are well below what ATWT pulls every day
.
It's a world out of whack right now. We're delivering 2.5 million at a time where there are so many more choices of programming. That's still a lot
of folks but not enough for a broadcast network. Daytime is a tough marketplace. Hopefully we'll find a home elsewhere.
TeleNext tried but wasn't able to pull off that miracle with Guiding Light, so it's hard to hold out hope here. Or is this a different scenario?
You have to be realistic about it. To try to sell anything nowadays is a huge effort but I think the window of opportunity for ATWT is a lot larger than it was for GL. If there is any blessing to be found in this, it's the timing of our cancellation. P&G has a wider range of opportunities simply because they have a jump start on selling this elsewhere. There are opportunities at the beginning of the calendar year that didn't exist for GL because it got its cancellation notice in April. I don't know a lot about it. That's not my bailiwick. That's up to others. All I can do right now is to try to do a good show and keep everyone focused and excited and proud of their work.
In a way the loss of ATWT is even more poignant than with GL because so much of the history still remains with the show. To have Helen Wagner [Nancy] return at Thanksgiving was wonderful. We still have Eileen Fulton [Lisa], Don Hastings [Bob], Kathy Hays [Kim], Marie Masters [Susan]. We may not see them often but they keep the heritage of the early days alive.
That's why it doesn't feel like it's time for this show to go. The identity remains. The families are still with us. When other shows have been cancelled they've sort of turned themselves inside out and become something different. They've tried to reinvent themselves or they have huge turnovers in cast. ATWT has been true to itself and that's why it feels like, wait a second, this show is still vital! I know we've been [vaguely] threatened by cancellation but it didn't feel like something that could happen at any second, which GL unfortunately had to live with for a number of years. What happened to us felt so sudden.
There's this lingering perception that P&G soaps are old-fart programming, when in fact they both trailblazed like crazy.
It is weird to me that there is that perception. Sometimes I think we're the best kept secret. But what can you do? We're going to continue to stay
relevant. We have Liberty [Meredith Hagner] coming down with leukemia and we're going to get into the whole stem-cell issue with her mom Janet [Julie
Pinson], who is Catholic. We'll be presenting many points of view on that. Meredith is leaving us but the role of Liberty will be recast. We're also
bringing on a new young man for Liberty, and we'll be aging the character of Faith so that she'll be a pivotal member of the Snyder household. We have
great stuff for Luke [Van Hansis] and Noah [Jake Silbermann]. It is absolutely imperative that we regenerate our young group of characters if ATWT is going to
have a life elsewhere. Going back to the days of [creator] Irna Phillips, it has been the signature of ATWT to tell youthful and relevant and timely stories.
That's not going to stop now.
