‘One Life to Live,’ ‘All My Children’ reduce episodes to two a week

A few weeks in to the experiment of airing new “All My Children” and “One Life to Live” episodes online, there is already a change when it comes to the pattern in which the shows are airing. However, it seems to be built more into a long-term strategy than just some panicked sign that the two shows are inching closer to being canceled before they really even get going in the first place.

Rather than airing four new episodes a week of each one of these two shows, The Online Network and Prospect Park are going to shift towards uploading two new episodes a week. New “All My Children” episodes will be uploaded on Monday and Wednesday whereas “One Life to Live” has Tuesdays and Thursdays. The benefit of doing this is that it does allow viewers to ensure more that they are able to catch up on a show quickly, rather than having four full episodes that they have to check out if they go off on vacation for a week.

Both of these shows have already proven to be somewhat successful on the Hulu and iTunes formats, but this is just an experimental platform that we don’t know how much success it needs. We also worry somewhat here when it comes to the salary structure for the actors. Is getting their work load cut in half going to make it so that they need to take other jobs in addition to this show? Soap opera actors are not the sort of six-figure-an-episode folk that we have on prime-time.

If you’ve missed all of the show’s launch thus far, we want to help you out. Therefore, check out the link here to see the first episodes of the series’ big debut online last month.

Photo: TOLN