In a rather elaborate note to fans on Thursday, Prospect Park principals Rich Frank and Jeff Kwatinetz laid out why their production company will stop creating daily episodes of the soaps “All My Children” and “One Life to Live.”
Recently, the shows moved to an online-only format, via Hulu and iTunes, after ABC canceled them in 2011. There, they had continued to release daily episodes, from Monday to Friday, but now will drop down to a two-per-week model, with “All My Children” airing Mondays and Wednesdays, and “One Life to Live” airing Tuesdays and Thursdays.
The reasoning for the move, according to Frank and Kwatinetz, seems to stem from their belief that the soaps don’t lend themselves well to binge-viewing, as people have to watch them from episode one to fully understand what’s going on. “Starting from the beginning with the amount of episodes we are releasing is asking too much for viewers who need to catch up,” the note read.
Where most binge-watchers consume TV based on a 13- or 22-episodes-per-season model, “Children” and “One Life” collectively feature more than 150 episodes per season, a “daunting task” to keep up with, according to the letter.
Read more about it at World Screen.
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