DELAY EXPECTED IN SOAPS’ TRANSITION TO THE WEB

Can the shows that brought joy and happiness to millions of daytime television viewers for generations find love and acceptance on the Internet? Tune in next January to find out. According to the New York Times, that’s the earliest that deals with the unions can be renegotiated that will allow the producers to continue churning out episodes of All My Children and One Life to Live at a drastically reduced budget that recognizes the web’s lesser potential to generate advertising revenue versus the broadcast networks. The Times reported on its website on Monday that while All My Children is expected to depart ABC on Sept. 23, it could be placed on hiatus until the first quarter of 2012. The hiatus is expected to be shorter for One Life to Live, which is due to leave the air in January. Complicating matters, it would seem, is that there is no precedent for such a move. No other scripted TV series has ever made the switch from broadcast to online streaming, although some episodes of unsuccessful TV series have been burned off on the Web after they were canceled.