[Full Disclosure: Soap Cities co-owner, Shawn Brady is the co-head of Facebook group “Soap Fans United.”]
As previously reported on Soap Cities, the Facebook group “Save AMC and OLTL” has been working tirelessly to bring our beloved soap operas back on-screen. One of their tasks of the day has been to have fans contact ABC Executive Nathan Varni to encourage the network to use “All My Children” (AMC) and “One Life to Live” (OLTL) characters on “General Hospital” (GH). The co-head of “Save AMC and OLTL,” Kymberleigh McLaughlin hopes this would lay the groundwork for the eventual resurrection of AMC and OLTL.
ABC GH Exec Nathan Varni Makes Statement on AMC & OLTL
Late Friday night, Varni posted a comment on the “Save AMC and OLTL” Facebook page. He said TPTB at ABC Daytime are “elated” to have the rights to AMC and OLTL characters back after a lengthy lawsuit that had those rights in dispute.
“Any use of characters from AMC and OLTL would have to be done in the right way, a way that makes sense for the future of stories on GH, while respecting the characters and their development OLTL and AMC,” Varni said.
ABC Has the Rights to AMC and OLTL Back–Now What Will They do With Them?
When Prospect Park, the producer of the online versions of AMC and OLTL, sued ABC for the rights to certain characters from those sudsers used on “General Hospital,” the production company had to cancel AMC and OLTL 2.0 due to the cost of the litigation.
Since late last year, when a court determined the rights to AMC and OLTL revert to ABC, fans have been hoping for and working towards the comeback of the two iconic Agnes Nixon daytime serials. Varni assured fans they are listening and having on-going and active conversations on this topic: “When I know more, clearly, we will let the fans know more.”
Read Nathan Varni’s full statement below. Also, make sure to visit the “Save AMC and OLTL” and “Soap Fans United” Facebook groups to find out how you can help bring back AMC and OLTL.
Give us your input in the comment section below. Check back with Soap Cities for more AMC/OLTL news, updates, fun, and more! Follow us on Twitter at @soapcities, on Instagram at @soapcities, and come chat with us in our Facebook group. “All My Children” and “One Life to Live” will one day be back on-screen—never doubt!
Discussion29 Comments
Yes by all means bring back amc/oltl, you will regain me as a loyal abc fan. I boycotted abc after having cancelled my shows.
Thanks, Vicki L Eudy, for reading, replying, and supporting us and the soaps! And thanks for agreeing with us and all of AMC and OLTL’s fans!
It’s not going to happen. Anyone who believe that is deluding themselves! Wake up! The best you could hope for is that some poor out of work AMC or OLTL actors who couldnt make it in prime time may pop up on GH. GH was not meant to be a life boat for these two sinking shows. That was Frank Valentini’s plan from the start. He wanted to incorporate all three shows together but ABC put the kibbosh on that quickly.
Valentini has already gutted GH’s true history and filled it with too many unfamiliar faces with no ties to the true history of the show and forced One life actors down the audience’s throat since before he even too office.
In case you didnt know he offered Kristen Alderson ( ex Star, ex Kiki) a contract role right after he was offered the job as Executive Producer. He hadnt even stepped into his office yet.
That was a smack in the face to long time GH veiwers like me who watched the show since 1969 when I was just 5 years old with my beloved mother.
This last ditch attempt to rescue the AMC refugees will be the last nail on GH’s coffin mark my words!
Thank you! You said everything I feel! You and I are the same age and I started watching in 1972 when I was 8.
Same here. I watch nothing on ABC except GH since they dropped my two other soaps.
So happy to hear there is hope that OLTL & AMC may be back on ABC…please don’t let the fans down…
We are going to do all we can to make our hopes a reality. And remember: you can too!
I am praying for OLTL to come back I really miss that show . Was a fan since 1970
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they are not bringing any shows back they want to cancel the ones that are on now if they were going to bring them back they would of done it already
Leave GH alone. I watched all three of these and IMO do crossovers with oltl and AMC but not at the expense of . Gh. Most of the actors have moved on and are being loved as other characters on the remaining 3soaps. I would like to see AMC and oltl come back but not combined with gh but
All I’m getting from this is that Viki and Clint might visit Port Charles at some point and Viki will be horrified to see that serial killer Franco looks exactly like her beloved Todd. I WANT MY SOAPS BACK!
I stopped watching GH about 2 months ago when it was clear to me that they were going to write the Morgan story so that Sonny wasn’t actually the reason that Morgan was killed. I’m my opinion, the fact that he put out a hit in the first place, when Carly asked him not to, makes him just as responsible, even if it wasn’t his bomb that killed him. I’m more than sick and tired of the Sonny show and I was a loyal fan sine I was 8 which is now 41 years. Even my daughter who is now 25 has stopped watching and she’s been watching with me since she was a little girl. We did however, love OLTL and incorporating some of those characters might bring us back but it would need to be done well and with context and not to prop up Sonny and Carly or Jason and Sam. They would need to have their own character stories that intertwine. I always thought Clint trying to take over ELQ and then messing with Tracy could be a great story.. I know I hold an unpopular view but I don’t like the fact that Sonny and Carly have moved into the older couple characters that people look to as wise and for advice. Oh and Dorian and Tracy may also tangle well together!!
I would be so happy if that happened!
I am so happy to hear that hopefully the both soaps will be back we missed not seeing the show over the years and always enjoyed each day coming home and relaxing after a stressful day and watching the soaps so please bring them back on TV
I would to see Vick cross to general hospital to along with Todd Blair Starr cole hope tea
ABC, PLEASE BRING BACK THE SOAPS YOUR AFTERNOONS ARFE REALLY BAD CANT WATCH ANYMORE ONLY WATCH GH AN I KNOW THERE ARE MANY LIKE ME WHO WANT AMC AND OLTL BACK, PLEASE BRING THEM BACK THANK YOU BARBARA THEADO
Glad to here there are talks about bringing back AMC and OLTL. I have been a fan of these 2 soaps nearly all my life. Hope all works out for this to happen.
Yes please bring them back, it would be so amazing to have all 3 of the soaps back. ABC had the best soaps with the best actors!!! Bring them back!!!
Of course would love for abc to bring back OLTL, but would certainly welcome as well OLTL characters returning to GH. All the OLTL character stories dropped. Tomas Delgado anyone? Franco needs to be replaced by Todd Manning asap the character does not work. Finish the John McBain and Natalie Banks story for us. Hoping to hear something positive soon, Thanks Nathan Varni for posting
I have watched abc daytime my entire life until the cancellations. My tv stayed on abc nearly all day as a result. I usually only tune in for GH now.
Yes bring them back.I miss not watching my shows.All for it
I would like to see these soaps come back I am big amc fan, I do not want them to all come onto gh, I can’t keep all the characters straight now, keep the original gh actors on and let the others go back to their original soaps, I feel like it is more understanding that way
I would agree with you but that’s not going to happen. ABC already continues to cut GH’s budget. There’s no way they’re going to spend the millions of dollars it would take to reproduce those shows. They just allowed prospect park to license the rights so they could make money off the shows without having to spend the bucks to produce them. Prospect Park bit off more than they could chew and failed.
I watched the online reboots of both shows and I was surprised that I thought they were good. But thats done now.
The actors wont tell you this but they’ve also given up on that. ABC/Disney has shown that they want to get out of the soap business. The only thing that saved GH is that they couldnt find a cheap replacement for it.
The original plan was to cancel all three soaps and be done with the genre.
GH just lucked out that they couldnt find a replacement for it after all the uproar about the cancellations of AMC and OLTL.
So many of the actors from both shows have also moved on. I see them all over TV now and many have turned to stage acting as well just like the former actors from the CBS soaps ATWT and GL.
The best you can hope for is that some of them will be hired for roles on GH. But GH’s cast is already full and so many of the older vets barely get airtime or story.
If ABC truly cared about these show’s legacies or their fans they would put the rights to these shows up for sale to the highest bidder or rent them to any other interested network and be done with it. But sadly since all this began I havent heard that any other network wants to take on the expense and headache of reproducing these shows. The 3 broadcast networks have enough trouble keeping their remaining soaps afloat. All 4 remaining network soaps are struggling with ratings today including number one rated YR.
Sadly no cable network has shown any interest in buying the rights to AMC or OLTL either. Sadly I think its time fans put these shows to rest and move on. I grew up watching both in their classic days of the 70s and 80s. But this is no longer the generation of “Love in the Afternoon.” Times have changed. Personally rather than having to sit through a horrendous attempt at a revival I’d rather ABC sell the rights to any of the old episodes they have left to a cable station like TV land so we could watch both shows in their grand heyday.
The glory days of young Erica Kane and Victoria Lord Riley, Buchanan can never be duplicated. But it would be great to cherish them and be able to relive them over and over again.
Griffin Monroe would have a cousin in Ryan Lavery , Charlotte Devane could be Valentin Cassadines mother, Anna would have her sister Alexandra and David Hayward has a past with all of these characters including Anna and is a doctor so he could join the GH staff.
Please bring I have lupus so I get sick a lot these characters are like are family some of us fan grew up watching them and you know how die hard soap fans remember Revolution? We boycotted that show and it was cancelled please bring our family back home
How delusional can soap fans get! Hasnt ABC shown you gullible people time and time again that they dont give a damn about soaps anymore? They even lied to Susan Lucci herself about AMC and you people still go back and touch the hot stove.
No way in hell is Disney going to shell out the millions of dollars it would take to bring either of these shows back on the air. They so far havent even had the common decency to let any other interested network license the rights so they could attempt to do what prospect park failed at. ( And thus far no other network has shown any interest in doing so).
The best you can hope for is that those out of work actors who havent went on to the stage or prime time would be willing to take limited roles on GH. That also is a poor proposition because so many have moved on in their lives and careers. Susan Lucci herself didnt even disdain to give the Prospect Park reboot a try. She was far too busy in prime time and the stage. Jacob Young ( ex JR) even nixed the idea when B& B came calling.
Also what most of you probably dont even know is that from the start Frank Valentini ( GH Exec Producer) proposed to blend all three ABC soaps together to save AMC & OLTL but Disney told him no dice. You also dont know that contrary to any lipservice they give to the audience Disney continues to slash GH’s budget. That’s exclusive news straight from the mouth of Lynn Herring ( Lucy Coe) herself.
Disney Chairman Bob Eiger has no love lost for soaps.
This is all about money. And in case you are really out of the loop Disney owns ABC and they foot the bill. Again all you can hope for is that Frank Valentini may continue to crowd GH’s canvas with AMC refugees as he attempted to do with One Life to Live immigrants. He has turned GH into an unrecognizable shamble. I mean give me a break Roger Howarth has been treated better than Tony Geary on that show. And dont get me started on Micheal Easton.
GH is barely hanging on with 2.5 million viewers these days. Adding more AMC and OLTL refugees will no doubt continue to erode GH’s core audience. Soon Valentini will give ABC what they’ve wanted since Bryan Frons and that’s a good excuse to cancel the show and be done with it.
Mark my words. This will be the final nail on GH’s coffin before it’s lowered into the ground to decay. SMH
while that is great news for fans of the departed soaps, incorporating characters from them into gh’s already bloated canvas doesn’t sound like a great idea to me. we already have a cast of very talented, significantly historical gh veterans that are badly under-utilized in favour of newbies we don’t give a damn about. incorporating characters and storylines from defunct soaps will only add to the mess that is happening in port chuck right now.
get rid of the chew. build a new soap that blends the best of amc and oltl, and if you have a minute, clean up port charles… please!
I think weaving the characters from AMC and OLTL into the storylines of GH is a cheap cop-out and disrespectful to the original shows. I understand it may be almost impossible to reassemble the cast of these two beloved soaps, but this long time and devoted viewer is not at all placated by attempting to lump all 3 soaps into one. Pay attention people! ABC wants us to celebrate our soaps coming back, but they’re not.
You want my opinion
All 3 soaps has Difference Identities To the stories they should be back in the air not on GH!