OLTL dropped to 2 episodes a week??

It's been confirmed on each of the soaps' facebook pages as well as Soap Opera Network.

Look deep enough...you'll find it

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Unfortunately, I was thinking this might be the direction they might have to take.

Here are portions of the email that was sent out:

On ABC the shows shared a large percentage of their viewers with each other. Yet, the majority of our viewers are watching one show or the other, not both, and they aren't viewing the shows when they did before. Part of the reason for choosing between the shows may be that the largest viewing takes place either between 12PM and 1PM (when people generally can only fit one episode during lunch time) or between 5PM and 7PM (when the vast majority of competing shows are a half hour long). We are finding that asking most people to regularly watch more than a half hour per day online seems to be too much.

During the first week, I pointed out how it seemed more people were watching AMC than OLTL because the first 4 episodes of AMC were several spots ahead of OLTL on Hulu and iTunes. AMC has continued to be ahead of OLTL everyday since then. Like they say, the majority of the audience are watching AMC over OLTL.

It also makes sense that the shows shared a large percentage of the same audience when they were on TV. If you were at home during the day to watch them, you probably had time to watch the other shows too, saw they automatically got your viewership. But with the shows being online, you don't have to watch them at a specific time. You can just watch them when you get some free time. If you have 30 minutes free, you might chose to watch AMC. But you may not have time to also watch OLTL, so that show wouldn't automatically get your viewership.

During their ABC runs,viewers watched only 2-3 episodes on average a week and picked up with whichever day'sepisode it was. Our viewers seem to primarily start with the first episode and then continue forward episode by episode. Like with primetime serialized dramas as opposed to the traditional slower pacing of daytime, people feel lost if they miss an episode. People are starting from the beginning; the shows are designed for complete viewing from episode one. Yet starting from the beginning with the amount of episodes we are releasing is asking too much for viewers who need to catch up.

I've actually heard this for years. The average viewer doesn't watch every single episode of a soap opera. They only watch 2 or 3 per week (generally Monday, Wednesday and Friday) and kinda fill-in what happened in between. But seeing as how this is essentially a new show and the back episodes are available, people who are joining after the launch feel compelled to go back and watch from episode 1. And it's a lot of episodes, so it's a daunting task.

Therefore, we have chosen to revise our scheduling model beginning this Monday, May 20th by introducing two new episodes from OLTL and AMC each week- new episodes of AMC will now run on Mondays and Wednesdays, and fresh episodes of OLTL will post Tuesdays and Thursdays. MORE, our behind the scenes series, will run as a single show on Fridays. This allows us to introduce a new episode of quality television every Monday through Friday and gives the audience a chance to catch up as we continue to build awareness and excitement around these new shows. Because Hulu agrees with our findings, for the meantime they will keep all of our episodes on Hulu.com for free to give viewers the opportunity to find us and catch up

While I prefer 4 episodes a week per show, if this is what they have to do to be successful, I guess I'm for it. With both shows only having 2 episodes per week and 4 episodes total, I think you're more likely to get the whole audience to watch both shows. I mean, if a large percentage is only watching the 4 episodes of AMC per week and not watching OLTL, maybe now they'll watch the OLTL episodes in place of the AMC episodes they've lost. If it was a time factor, that time could now be freed up.

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Less than an hour. With commercials and such it isn't 30 minutes. I don't think less than 30 minutes 4 times a week is enough. Ugh.

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[deleted]

This is not a very good sign. Cutting the shows suggests that they are not making enough money to cover their expenses and make a profit. The fact that it is happening so soon after the premieres is also troubling. I bet one of the shows will be cancelled within a year, and they will eventually just focus on one.

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Regular TV shows are usually only 30mins - an hour a week on TV. That's one of the biggest issues with soaps, they air EVERY DAY no matter what, things get stale pretty fast. Hence the whole you can watch it on maybe a Wed and Friday and be all caught up.

While I watched both shows everyday on line while doing other things, I'm not against this happening.

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They should make them two 60 minute episodes a week then, alternating, Monday Wednesday AMC, Tueday Thursday OLTL Friday Special recap for both together.
For downright amateur villains you birds win the nickel-plated hot dogs.

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I'm not happy about this. I was really enjoying the new OLTL. This reminds me so much of what happened with "Passions." When NBC cancelled it in 2007, it moved to DirecTV, but reduced its episode to 4 one-hour episodes a week (instead of the 5 when it aired on NBC). After a few months it was then reduced to 3 episodes per week. Then it was cancelled.

Now, less than 3 weeks after its premiere, Prospect Park is already scaling back the number of episodes in half?! WTF! I think they're not being honest. Maybe this was too big a venture for them. I don't know. I thought OLTL had a good ending on ABC. If they cancel it again, I hope there will be some closure instead of loose ends...

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