To soap opera fans facing the biggest cliffhanger of all — the death of their favorite programs — Jeffrey Kwatinetz and Rich Frank seemed like heroes.
In July, two months after ABC canceled “All My Children” and “One Life to Live,” the two men swooped in, licensed the shows and promised to bring them back to life on the Internet. With the fans’ help, they were determined to prove that online advertising could sustain high-quality TV shows.
But it didn’t work as planned. Unable to persuade Hollywood unions or financiers to support the experiment, the two men said Wednesday that they had suspended their efforts to revive the shows. “We couldn’t ultimately secure the backing and clear all the hurdles in time,” they said in a joint statement, having concluded late Tuesday night that they had exhausted all their options.
The collapse of the closely watched deal is a window into the gulf that still exists between the television productions that have existed for decades and the Web productions that are emerging as a popular alternative for viewers. Among media executives, uncertainty reigns about whether the business models of the Web can support the budgets of big TV shows.
Doubtless there will be more such attempts to transition shows to the Web; just last week, Netflix said it planned to revive the TV sitcom “Arrested Development,” which was canceled six years ago, as an online series. Netflix content, though, is sustained by subscription revenue. When Mr. Kwatinetz and Mr. Frank announced on July 7 that they had licensed the soaps from ABC, they said their plan depended on advertising sales. Their research indicated that too few people would pay subscription fees to watch the shows.
“We hope that our efforts are not lost,” the two men said Wednesday, “and that we somehow created a dialogue and movement on the feasibility of first-run, network-quality content online.”
Indeed, the online plan hatched by their production company, Prospect Park, did spark conversation; while many in Hollywood dismissed it as fantastical, others praised the company for trying. In a column earlier this month, the founder of SoapCentral.com, Dan J. Kroll, compared the ups and downs of the last few months to “infamous back-from-the-dead stories that we both love and hate.”
Privately, Mr. Kwatinetz, a longtime talent manager and TV producer, told associates that the soap opera plan had been the hardest experience of his life.
Their plan called for new episodes of the two soaps to be distributed through a Web site called the Online Network and through other means, such as a cable channel repeat.
Within days, though, Mr. Kwatinetz and Mr. Frank realized that they had underestimated the time it would take to win over cast members like Susan Lucci, the star of “All My Children,” and groups like the Writers Guild of America. And by the end of July, Prospect Park was cautioning that “All My Children” probably wouldn’t make the planned transition to the Web in September, as originally hoped.
Later, the company abandoned plans to reboot “All My Children” altogether and decided to concentrate on “One Life to Live” because a greater number of that show’s stars and writers had signed on to participate.
But those signings were contingent on final agreements with the unions and guilds, which were never reached. The licensing terms for the soaps specified that Web episodes would be just as long and just as high in quality as they were on TV; that enabled the writers guild and other unions to say in negotiations that cast and crew members should be paid almost as much as they were paid for the TV versions of the shows.
Prospect Park had secured some financing for the online productions, according to two people involved in the company’s plans — but not enough to meet the expectations of the unions. So the company pushed back, saying that it needed flexibility because its online production plan was experimental. The argument was that the shows had already been canceled.
“We thought they would be cheering us for saving jobs,” said one of the people involved. The people insisted on anonymity because the company had decided not to say anything on the record except for the statement.
In a statement Wednesday, the Writers Guild placed any blame for the plan’s collapse on the finances, not the negotiations. “We were disappointed to learn that Prospect Park’s financing fell through,” the guild said. “Prior to the end of last week, we were close to a fair deal for the writers.”
At the same time, Prospect Park was struggling to line up the financial backers and the technology partners, like YouTube, that it needed to start and run an online network. Mr. Kwatinetz and Mr. Frank said there were “hundreds of presentations” given to potential partners this year.
One of the people involved in the plan suggested that Prospect Park had misjudged Hollywood’s willingness to try a new business and distribution model. “We thought we were going to get so much support from the community,” the person said, “but that support wasn’t there.”
Another of the unions involved, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, which represents actors, said Wednesday that it remained hopeful “that an opportunity to revive these two popular series will emerge in the future.” For the time being, that sentiment might give soap opera fans, accustomed to back-from-the-dead storylines, some hope.
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