Less ‘All My Children’ and ‘One Life to Live’ on Web

Rich Frank and Jeff Kwatinetz, who own the production company responsible for the shows, said viewers’ behavior had suggested to them that they make a change. While daytime dramas on TV typically have fresh episodes five days a week, Mr. Frank and Mr. Kwatinetz said in a statement on Thursday that in viewing patterns, “All My Children” and “One Life to Live” now resemble online shows more closely than traditional television shows.

Some viewers are stockpiling episodes and watching them on the weekend, on their own schedules. “In the past these shows had their vast majority of views within the first 24 hours,” said Mr. Frank and Mr. Kwatinetz, whose company is called Prospect Park. “Instead, our shows are primarily consumed on different days than when they originally air.”

Additionally, there is not as much overlap between the audiences of the two shows as there was on TV; many viewers seem to be choosing to watch one or the other. “This leads us to believe we are posting too many episodes and making it far too challenging for viewers to keep up,” they said.

So Prospect Park will start staggering future episodes, with new half-hours of “All My Children” on Mondays and Wednesdays alternating with “One Life to Live” on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The new schedule will take effect on Monday; the shows will continue to be distributed through Hulu and iTunes.

The schedule change was immediately assailed by some fans, but others said they supported the decision, if only to keep the shows alive in some form. The soaps were canceled by ABC in 2011. In the statement, which was addressed to fans of the shows, the two producers apologized for the change and added, “Please understand we are trying to ensure our shows succeed and not meet the fate they experienced previously.”

While the adjustment will not markedly reduce the production company’s costs — Prospect Park is still committed to producing 220 episodes of each show — it will give the company more time to recoup those costs and turn a profit. Prospect Park needs each episode to be seen roughly 500,000 times to break even. With that in mind, slowing down the release schedule so that those episodes last two years instead of one is a logical step.

Prospect Park also said it would combine the two Friday recap shows that it is currently producing into one.

Hulu, which has guaranteed a minimum amount of ad revenue to Prospect Park, has backed the new schedule, Mr. Frank and Mr. Kwatinetz said in their statement. Hulu was going to make only the most recent episodes available free, while providing the whole library to paying subscribers of its Hulu Plus service. But “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,” the two men said.

“All My Children” and “One Life to Live” have regularly ranked among the top 10 most-watched series on Hulu since their premieres on April 29. But no specific viewing data is available for that site or for iTunes.

The Prospect Park statement hinted at the challenges associated with marketing shows, even those with storied pasts, on the Internet. While television is a mostly passive medium, lending itself to viewing of multiple shows in one sitting as dictated by the schedule, the Internet is more active: viewers choose what to watch, when, in what order. (With the rise of on-demand options, television viewing is slowly becoming more active, as well.) Many fans have been binge-viewing the soaps, Mr. Frank and Mr. Kwatinetz said Thursday, and they felt overwhelmed by the number of new episodes a week.

“We need to devise a model that works for all viewers,” one that follows how they want to watch online, the statement said. “When it comes to online, as with all new technology, it’s adapt or fail. We feel fortunate to be an online company and to have such an opportunity to adapt.”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/17/business/media/less-all-my-children-and-one-life-to-live-on-web.html?partner=rss&emc=rss