Friday, April 22, 2011

FLASHBACK: SECRET STORM Canceled (Coming Daytime Trends) 1974

From L. Ian MacDonald's TV & Radio syndicated newspaper column on February 5, 1974:

Here's bad news for soap opera buffs: CBS has canceled THE SECRET STORM after a run of 20 years. From next Monday, its place in the network's daytime schedule will be filled by a game show called TATTLETALES. The cancellation can be taken as a signal for the changing daytime order, not unlike CBS's decision three years ago to sweep out ED SULLIVAN and its rural situation comedies. The coming daytime trend is more and more low-budget, 90-minute drama and variety specials, which ABC has already gone in for in a big and apparently successful way.

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5 comments:

  1. I can clearly remember reading about syndicating 'Secret Storm' after its CBS cancellation in early 1974. Nothing came of it. Years later, I was acquainted with an executive from American Home Products (Secret Storm's sponsor), and I could kick myself for not asking why the syndication never happened. Here was my chance to get the inside scoop from TPTB and I blew it! Big time.

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  2. Don't fret. You probably would not have gotten a straight answer.

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  3. I love the Secret Storm. My mother started my brother, sister, and I watching all of CBS soaps. Those were the days. There never be days like those anymore!

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  4. I sometimes wonder if reels of old Secret Storm episodes could be sitting in some dusty old AHP records retention boxes at some storage outpost that Wyeth Pharaceuticals moved them to that Pfizer doesn't even know they inherited!

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  5. I'm sure there are more episodes than we know about out there somewhere. Many soap stars have told me they have old master tapes and other tapes, etc in their garages or closets but I've never been able to get my hands on them.

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