Sonny Corinthos

Maybe it was Farah Fath, a former soap opera star, who said it best on Wednesday when ABC confirmed that it had renewed “General Hospital” for a landmark 50th season.

Congratulating the cast and crew in a Twitter message, she wrote, “A soap renewal in 2012 is nothing short of victorious.”

That’s how it felt for fans of the show too, who have been worried for months about its fate. Last year, in what was widely seen as a cost-cutting move, ABC ended two other soaps, “All My Children” and “One Life to Live,” and installed two talk shows in their former time slots. But it canceled one of the talk shows, “The Revolution,” on Wednesday, citing weak ratings.

“The Revolution,” which has a self-improvement theme, has retained only about half of the audience of “One Life to Live” since it started in January. Ms. Fath, who had been a cast member on “One Life to Live,” dubbed the talk show “The Revulsion” and wrote on Twitter, “It’s hard to even muster up an ‘We told you so.’ ”

The other new talk show, “The Chew,” has had steadier ratings. When the next television season starts in September, it will stay on ABC’s daytime schedule, most likely in the 1 p.m. time slot in many local markets.

Also in September, “General Hospital,” which is now at 3 p.m., will move to the 2 p.m. time slot in many markets, making way for Katie Couric’s new syndicated talk show, “Katie.” The moves were first reported by Deadline.com on Wednesday.

“The Revolution” will end a bit prematurely, though. In early July it will be replaced by an afternoon edition of the ABC News program “Good Morning America.” Tentatively titled “GMA in the Afternoon,” that show will have a nine-week run until “General Hospital” takes its place. The “GMA” co-hosts Josh Elliott and Lara Spencer are expected to lead the afternoon hour.

Vicki Dummer, who oversees daytime programming for ABC, has credited Frank Valentini, the former executive producer of “One Life to Live,” with rejuvenating “General Hospital.” When he took over the show last winter, he brought with him several cast members from that show.

Three other soap operas remain on network television: “The Young and the Restless” and “The Bold and the Beautiful” on CBS, and “Days of Our Lives” on NBC.

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.co...eral-hospital/

Charlie Goose

Well gee whiz, SONNY CORINTHOS, are you a fan of GH?

I don't watch soaps, but it's kind of comforting to know that some long running ones still survive.

MikahC

I was curious so I looked it up. Here's the original cast of GH (1963).

Steve Hardy
Jessie Brewer
Phil Brewer
Lucille March
Al Weeks
Eddie Weeks
Angie Costello

Elizabeth Webber is the granddaughter of Steve Hardy. Surprisingly, Scotty Baldwin was one of the longest running characters. He was introduced as a child in 1965.

Double_Oh_7

How devastating that ABC cancelled One Life to Live with a 43 year history for a show that didn't even last 43 weeks. What a waste.

wmansir

Seriously? and that's their working title?

whotony

Thansk for the news. I am thrilled to see it.

I've been following for over thirty years now.
The last couple of months have been fun with the transferring of a a few OLTL'ers including at least one more coming over soon Tea Delgado.

Heather Weber has been a blast as a still Crazy nut job.

Great news.

Sonny Corinthos

Yes sir, i've been watching GH since I was drinking by first bottle in my crib. With the recent trend of giving long time Soaps the ax, I have been holding my breath for this announcement. I was really expecting ABC not to renew GH.

I hope they learned a lesson. It really does suck ABC canceled OLTO for that sleep inducing Revolution crap. AMC, while I was kind of sad to see it go, it had been on it's last legs for awhile now IMO.

I was catching up on yesterday's GH on SoapNet last night and it was followed by The Young and the Restless. Holy crap, I think anyone who has ever been on a Soap is now on the show. I saw Laura from GH, Angie from AMC, Stefan Cassadine from GH, Annie from AMC just in the first 20 minutes of the show. I also heard that Triston Rogers (Robert from GH) is headed back to Y&R for another run on the Soap. That show's payroll must be unreal.

Nabalab

My wife is so happy about this, as she loves GH.

For the holidays, I got her tickets to see "Port Chuck" (4 guys from the show formed a cover band). Show is in 2 weeks, she's getting excited.

I think she would leave me for "Jason" in a heartbeat

whotony

Corinthos, what do you make of the Robin business with her being held captive in a room somewhere by an unknown captor?

I'm guessing Lisa or someone related to her. We never did see Lisa's body. Also since Robin is alive, who's body was that burned up corpse?

Sonny Corinthos

I'm guessing it's Lisa behind Robin being held hostage. Like you said, we never seen Lisa's dead body on air. What i'm thinking is that Patrick blacked out for just a bit giving Lisa time to grab Robin and replace her with another body. She's crazy enough to pull something like this off.

Shannon Nutt

Not a total shock that ABC wants to keep GH around, considering those replacement shows didn't do any better than AMC and OLTL did - although I bet you GH is getting a significant budget cut.

MikahC

What? I tuned in for awhile to see old timers (Anna, Robert, Luke, Holly). I thought Robin was gone. And what's this about "Heather Webber"? Is that Heather as in Heather & Scotty? She's back on the show now? I stopped watching again after they convinced Helena Holly's/Luke's son was really Robert's and sent him off on a journey to distract Robert from suicidal thoughts after Robin's "death".

Double_Oh_7

I think Carlivati will dig deeper into GH history for this. It's most likely Faison, or as a long-shot David Hayward who was married to Anna when she was on AMC.

whotony

Heather is back. She convinced her son Steve to take her in custody and allow her to leave the nut house.
This was after she told Sam the secret of who Franco is in ahem, relation to Jason.

whotony

Also Anna and Heather will give something to do for Luke for a change besides be all brooding.

whotony

Good call on that one. It wasn't Lisa but it appears to be two returning character
Involved including one that hasn't been on the show since 1990 and the actor who portrayed this character since 1989.

GH has really been fun this year.

Double_Oh_7

It really has. It's nice to be able to laugh during GH again, and not slit your wrists because it's so dark. They need to bring back Heather ASAP. Teaming her up with Todd has been the best pairing on this show in ages.

Sonny Corinthos

Steve Burton Quits General Hospital. http://www.tvguide.com/News/Steve-Bu...l-1052432.aspx

Shannon Nutt

I think he can see the writing on the wall and is taking his best opportunity to exit. As loyal as ABC has been to GH, I can't imagine it will still be on the air three years from now. The biggest problem with daytime soaps has been their refusal to adapt...people no longer want stories that run slower than real-life does. Yes, budgets and production values are low, but that's no excuse for lazy writing. Shake things up, stir the pot, do crazy stuff...no - they seem satisfied with the status quo - and that's why they're all dying a slow death (the few that haven't already been axed).

Charlie Goose

That takes cajones to leave a decent paying acting job that you've had for 20 years.

MikahC

It's a whole heck of a lot easier than leaving a decent paying acting job you've had for 1 year.

bigjim25

Two stories to pass along:
General Hospital's John Ingle who played Edward Quartermaine Dies at 84

Sean Kanan Returns to General Hospital (maybe as a recast for Jason)

Sonny Corinthos

It's sad to hear of John Ingle's passing. He was in a episode last week and he looked really bad. As far as Sean Kanan goes, I think he would be perfect as a recast for Jason. He and Steve Burton are cousins and have similar looks and features. The Jason character is too important to the show to just write off so you know they are going to have to recast the role.

whotony

His appearances have drastically reduced over the last few months so I knew something was wrong.

His last appearance was when he gave up a anti serum to Pattricks little girl so I'm sure they planned on
Letting him die offscreen.

I didn't see it today yet but I'm sure they made mention of it at the beginning.

Deadman31

I hope they actually kill off Edward and dont recast. The character is probably close to 137 years old by now.