All My Children and One Life to Live

摘要

Soap operas are an all-or-nothing affair: if you don't watch them, they may as well not exist. But if you do, they're like no other commitment on television. Everyone hates having a favorite show canceled. But your favorite soap? That's getting a solid chunk of your life canceled. More than 80 years of cumulative soap-opera story will draw to a close by January 2012 following ABC's April 14 announcement that it will cancel All My Children and One Life to Live. The decision leaves General Hospital as the network's last soap standing. Their replacements-a talk show and a lifestyle show-are more easily produced and are the type of program that has had far more success launching in recent years. The reversal for the soap, a genre that has been so reliable for so long, seems to be due partly to the popularity of reality TV and, beyond that, our tabloid culture.