Monday, December 14, 2009

B&B's Brad Bell On ATWT & The Future Of Soaps

B&B executive producer and head writer Bradley Bell has spoken to TV Guide Magazine about his thoughts on the ATWT cancellation and the future of daytime and the CBS lineup.

Should we be worried about what Moonves said? What was your take on that?
I believe that he was specifically referring to the P&G shows when he said that. B&B just recently signed a two-year deal with CBS in October, so we have legs with the network. Y&R signed a similar deal around the same time.

So there’s no cause for concern? I hate to be paranoid here but a lot of us were creeped out by Moonves’ cold, cavalier attitude toward soaps in that CNBC interview he gave on the day of the cancellation. He’s just not showing the love.
I think we’re now down to the six soaps that will survive. For me there was no surprise that ATWT was cancelled. Their business model wasn’t working. I had [prior to the cancellation] spoken to people at P&G and they were very free with the information that they were losing money and they wanted to either find a way to make ATWT profitable or get out of the game. So they had to pull the plug and CBS had to pull the plug.

So you’re saying P&G wanted this?
P&G is a big company and they’re more focused on selling their products and less concerned about their shows. They certainly care about their fans…but it was time.

Read the complete interview here.

1 comment:

  1. "So you’re saying P&G wanted this?"

    "P&G is a big company and they’re more focused on selling their products and less concerned about their shows. They certainly care about their fans…but it was time."

    Well I knew that P&G wanted out of soaps but that part about caring about the fans is utter BS. They're more interested in exploiting the web for more commercials than using either tv or the internet for entertainment purposes. There has to be a better way to transition out of an industry than dumping institutions like ATWT and GL like they did. Cut their budgets until they bleed and then give them hope just to kill them anyway.

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