All My Children
Seven Culprits Who Killed the Soaps! Who or what else should join this list?
Photo Credit: JPI Studios
TV Guide took a look today at who they deem responsible for killing the network daytime dramas! They have come up with a list of culprits responsible for the fall of the genre. The top seven contain: James Franco, The Real Housewives reality franchise, Farmville, plus several other wrong-doers! See if you agree with their assessment, and then let us know who or what else should be added to the list of the culprits for the demise of your beloved soaps.
TV Guide Top Seven List of Culprits:
1. Reality Television
2. Ratings Grabbers vs. Lame Stunts
3. Bratty Kids
4. Day Jobs
5. The Siren Song of Social Media
6. Talk Shows
7. Time-shifted viewing
All My Children
‘All My Children’ Movie Writers for Lifetime Revealed: Ron Carlivati, Jamey Giddens and Leo Richardson
This week began and as reported with a spotlight article on Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos and how their production entity, Milojo, has been teeing up the All My Children reboot with Lifetime.
The L.A. Times featured the married couple, co-hosts of Live with Kelly and Mark, and former All My Children cast members (where they met and fell in love) about their plans to bring two All My Children movies to Lifetime and how they are working with the Agnes Nixon estate to make it come to fruition,
On Wednesday, it was revealed by Daytime Confidential, that All My Children reboot producer, Andrew Stearn handpicked none other than Ron Carlivati (ex-head writer, One Life to Live, General Hospital and Days of our Lives) and Jamey Giddens (who is the new co-head writer of The Young and the Restless, following his tenures on the writing teams of Beyond the Gates and Days of Our Lives), as the two scribes who will bring the first of two of Kelly and Mark’s All My Children movies to the page.
Photo: IMDb
RON CARLIVATI AND JAMEY GIDDENS CONFIRM THEIR BOARDING THE ALL MY CHILDREN MOVIE PROJECT
The second installment is said to be written by primetime writer Leo Richardson whose credits include: Star, Katy Keene and more recently the Penn Badgley (ex-Phillip Chancellor IV, The Young and the Restless) starring series, You.
Richardson also wrote for three years on the U.K.’s long-running soap, EastEnders. All My Children revival fans will recall Richardson’s name was attached as the writer for the first incarnation of the All My Children movies, entitled, Pine Valley.
Ron Carlivati took to X and confirmed he is indeed boarding the All My Children movie project. Carlivati shared, “So excited to share this news! Thanks to Andrew Stearn, Kelly Ripa, Mark Consuelos, Albert Bianchini and the Agnes Nixon estate for entrusting Jamey Giddens and me with the first of two planned All My Children movies for Lifetime! Stay tuned!”
Photo: Jeremy Smith/imageSPACE
Jamey Giddens confirmed DC’s announcement by taking to his account on X and expressing, “I’ve been booked and busy in 2026. Thanks to Andrew Stearn, the Agnes Nixon estate, Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos for entrusting Ron Carlivati, and me with the first of two planned All My Children movies for Lifetime!”
Some fans seemed to question how Giddens could be writing for the first All My Children movie at Lifetime, when he is the new co-head writer at The Young and the Restless with Dan O’Connor. Jamey answered that head on via X and explained, “We turned in our All My Children script months ago. My sole focus as of this past Monday, is Genoa City, Wisconsin! #YR”
ERICA KANE, MARIA SANTOS AND HAYLEY AND MATEO SANTOS TO APPEAR IN THE ALL MY CHILDREN MOVIE REVIVAL?
In the planned stories, Susan Lucci’s Erica Kane and Eva LaRue’s Maria Santos will be two characters whose lives we will get to see for the first time since the series was canceled by ABC back in 2011 after 41 years on the air. As well, Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos confirmed they will make brief appearances on-screen; one could assume as Hayley and Mateo Santos.
“It’d be wonderful to give the fans something that they’ve been yearning for so many years,” shared Mark Consuelos to the LA Times. “All My Children gave me my family. I met my wife there. It gave me my start in the business. It gave us so much. It would be a dream to be able to give back.”
So, what do you think of Ron Carlivati and Jamey Giddens getting nod to write the All My Children movie #1 script and Leo Richardson #2? Weigh-in via the comment section below.
All My Children
‘All My Children’ Revival Updates: Lifetime EVP Speaks on Why Proposed Movies are Great Fit, Mark Consuelos Wants To ‘Give Back’ to Fans
The All My Children revival via movies at Lifetime is still in the works from former series stars and marrieds, Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos, through their production company, Milojo.
The co-hosts of Live with Kelly and Mark were featured this week in a Los Angeles Times article which detailed their efforts to bring some of the citizens of Pine Valley back to your screens.
As previously reported, and reaffirmed by the L.A. Times, the All My Children movies will be set in the present day and focus on what beloved characters such as Erica Kane (Susan Lucci) and Maria Santos Gray (Eva LaRue) are doing now. In addition, Kelly Ripa confirmed that she and Mark Consuelos will also appear on screen briefly most likely appearing in their signature soap roles as Hayley and Mateo Santos.
Photo: ABC
ALL MY CHILDREN MOVIES BRING NOSTALGIA THAT CAN BE MADE TO FEEL NEW AGAIN
Elaine Frontain Bryant, executive vice president and head of programming for A&E, Lifetime, and Lifetime Movie Network said of the All My Children reboot, “Lifetime is always interested in shows that kind of tap into a powerful nostalgia that can be made fresh for today’s audience. There’s a whole generation of women that have missed these stories and these characters.”
As for working with Kelly and Mark on the Lifetime movie versions of the soap, “They’re exactly the kind of partners you want at a brand,” expressed Bryant. “They’re trusted voices because every day they’re talking to their audience, which, a lot of times, is our audience. They bring a real credibility and have an authentic point of view. You meet Kelly and Mark and kind of what you see is what you get, and I think they bring that same authenticity to their development standards.”
Albert Bianchini, executive producer for Milojo, says he knows All My Children is so wildly popular with the fans of daytime. That was punctuated when seeing it in person, and how the energy was off the charts back in January of 2025 when Kelly participated along with Susan Lucci, former head writer, Lorraine Broderick and casting director, Judy Blye Wilson in a conversation with Andy Cohen at the 92nd Street Y in New York City.
© Steven Bergman/AFF-USA.COM Credit: AFF/Alamy Live News
“I’ve never seen a crowd like that in my life. People were lined up around the block, recalled the Bianchini. “Everyone wanted to know, ‘When is (All My Children) coming back? We want more.’ We got to see that in real life and Kelly got to feel it in real life, and it made so much sense. I just know that the minute it gets out in the world, people will want more and more and more. There’s just a love there.”
Kelly Ripa added that they are, “working closely with Bob and Sarah Nixon, who are also serving as producers.” She recalled, “She (Agnes Nixon) was so far ahead of her time. She covered topics that weren’t being covered. It was extraordinary the audiences that the show drew, and she served them real stories that were affecting Americans across the country but weren’t necessarily being represented anywhere.”
“It’d be wonderful to give the fans something that they’ve been yearning for so many years,” shared Mark Consuelos. “All My Children gave me my family. I met my wife there. It gave me my start in the business. It gave us so much. It would be a dream to be able to give back.”
THE CANCELLATION AND STOPS AND STARTS OF ALL MY CHILDREN REBOOTS
All My Children aired on ABC from 1970 to 2011. It got a second chance at life when Prospect Park resurrected the show and brought it to The OnLine Network and Hulu for one season in 2013.
Recently, the series made a return through the estate of Agnes Nixon and is streaming internationally on BEONDTV and through their partnership with PlutoTV Canada with episodes starting in 1995. Fans hope original episodes will some day soon be available in the U.S. as well, but that could prove more difficult since ABC owns the rights to the episodes stateside.
Now 13 years later, while there is no word yet on a definitive production start date to the two movies at Lifetime, all the people involved seemed determined to make it come to life.
So, what do you think of the executive vice-president of Lifetime and LMN being enthusiastic about Kelly and Mark’s All My Children movie revivals? Are you wanting to see this come to fruition? Kelly and Mark seem to have made this a very high priority. Do you hope that by 2027 we might be able to get this to the finish the line and into production? Weigh-in via the comment section.
Starting on May 1, All My Children fans in Canada will be able to see classic episodes of the beloved former ABC soap opera when they stream on Pluto TV Canada.
Pluto TV picked-up the All My Children Channel that the Nixon family has created in partnership with BEONDTV +. The show which aired for 41 years on ABC and ended on the network in 2011, had so many memorable storylines and characters; the least of which is the enduring run of Erica Kane played by soap icon, Susan Lucci.
As previously reported, starting with episodes from the year 1995, which was the 25th anniversary of the soap. Pluto TV Canada viewers will be able to catch 8 episodes on repeat per day. With the success of the venture, the Nixons are hopeful that they will bring viewers many more years of the show to come.
Photo: ABC
Sarah Nixon, producer, shared with Michael Fairman TV exclusively, “We are thrilled that Pluto TV has launched All My Children in Canada! Let’s hope the engagement from our incredibly loyal fans across the border will encourage ABC to bring it to the U.S.! We share what Aggie (Agnes Nixon) always felt, that it is the enthusiasm and love from the fans that has kept this legacy beloved and relevant – to this day!”
In addition, 0ne week ago, during Susan Lucci’s visit to Los Angeles promoting her book La Lucci, she was joined by her former Pine Valley castmates, Rebecca Budig (ex-Greenlee, AMC, now Taylor, B&B) and Eva LaRue (ex-Maria, AMC) and the trio posed for a pic. At that time, LaRue shared via Instagram, “NEW All My Children channel streaming classic episodes 24/7 now on Pluto TV Canada! Fingers crossed to watch soon on Pluto US.”
That was also confirmed this week by TV Watercooler’s Jeevan Brar who took to X and expressed, “The All My Children channel begins streaming this Friday, May 1 on Pluto TV Canada.
So, Canadian viewers, excited about Pluto TV’s All My Children channel? United States fans, hopeful from Sarah’s message that perhaps soon, we can see the beloved soap once again as well? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.
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how about people who claim want to help daytime, but are really ruining it?
I’ve thought for a few years that one network was intentionally writing their soaps to drive down the numbers of viewers. A major leading character spends years in an upright comatose state. She would sit motionless while her ‘daughter’ would comb her long hair. The character was portrayed as a weak helpless woman for years. The characters daughter grew up off camera supposedly raised by her grandmother. The soap couple had been loving and great parents a decade earlier…dream parents. The network ended it with just a toss away story. No real storyline. Just a few basic lines to write her off the show while trying to make the character appear unstable and certainly not the mother that we all watched for well over a decade. The actress would have returned for major family events but the network would not allow that. The viewers were supposed to somehow believe this incredible mother would not attend her own grandsons memorial (oops…that was off camera too) or stand with her daughter when she was deciding about having an abortion. What this network did to destroy their soaps would fill Tom Clancy length novels. What they did to keep them on the air is minimul. Thank God for the actors that made something good out of nothing. It was intentional suicide by that network and a few columnists over the years have openly suggested that it had to be intentional.
I think it hasnt helped OUR soaps writing things PEOPLE just couldnt buy.
Twins, characters coming back from the dead and or just storylines shoved down our throats. Bring in characters that DONT belong.
Characters leaving, that meant the end of True Love , for example; Brandon Buddy
leaving his role of Cole. Pairing Starr with another leaving Sole to just die.
Actors come and go but THAT was crushing.
I stopped watching even before Buddy left.
The Natalie & John story ruined by a stupid one night stand with Brody.
think you are on the right track with this comment Jan…. prime time soaps don’t write this way anymore…… we are not stuck in the 80’s are we ……and I think TPTB have forgotten that today’s viewer is NOT the same kind of viewer that our mother’s were….our attention span is much shorter I think…..even as we may want to escape for an hour in our favorite show…dreaming of love in the afternoon….we are an intelligent viewer…not mindless…and I think some of this is not throughly planned….thought through…storylines arcing to make sense…or too many dropped storylines….why is that …is that the writers fault or production cut backs making that happen?? not sure ……..BUT in a nutshell I agree we are not buying the characters and stories that don’t belong……and with other things so easily accessible for the viewer to turn too to instead…..remember also we are the generation that fast forwards through the commercials sorry to say
Soaps in the era of reality TV… it’s all about shock and sensationalism. The stories on daytime television were once apparently really thought out and fine tuned, where a few months in advance you would see foreshadowing of what was to come (i.e. The Left Handed Boy). Now there is no intricate, fine tuned, build up of story. Pretty much they are writing 2 hour movies of the week (if that), where the whole cast of characters change to support the plot de jour. There is no character consistency. Their whole personality, moral code, cognitive functioning can change on a dime so the writers can prop the lame plots and stunts for what they believe is maximum effect… they have put their wants and desires with regard to what they think would be interesting in front of what is really important to the daytime audience.. the characters! These are family members to us, best friends…. TPTB (for GH anyway) treat the whole audience like we have ADD or ADHD, or they have it themselves.. and nobody seems to get that the pay off is much better when you take it slow, and build, to the point where the audience is at the edge of their seat in anticipation. (L&L 1979-1981). There is no more anticipation… and truthfully that’s what the genre has.. the only thing it has to it’s advantage that no other genre did…is time… time for the build, time for the REAL maximum payoff. They can’t compete with the plots, stunts and special effects of movies and streaming Net Flix, they can’t compete with adult entertainment (though they seem to try .. and it is pathetic to watch the lame sex scenes that they can’t really do anything with for those of us who are over 12, and they miss the point that for this audience it should be about getting there.. the emotional build ). The people in charge have tried to take soaps and make them something they were never intended to be. They have thrown out their core viewers, their dedicated, loyal fans thinking somehow they were going to win new viewers (more important ones) with stunts (a friday cliffhanger was about human beings in an emotional situation, and one would say something and we would wait all weekend just to see the response, the effect, the human reaction… gun shots, explosions ring hollow .. yes even to the younger demographic!) The truth is good storytelling will never go out of fashion. I cannot tell you how many teenagers got hooked on L&L in 2006. Why? Because it was a good story, one with roots, one with emotion, one that they could relate too. They need to stop understimating the younger viewers and just tell good, intelligent stories about characters the audience cares about. It needs to be about emotion, not plot. Serialization has been around for a long time, and it will be around for a long time.. but the networks have ruined daytime drama in the era of reality television, by trying to merge the two together, when they just don’t fit.
daytime executives who neither like nor understand the genre…..and dont listen to the viewers who do
The OJ Simpson Trial (which could be combined with the “reality TV” group). There is probably a direct correlation between the trial and the dwindling number of viewers. Watching that trial for weeks and weeks gave people a taste of “reality” TV and that was it. I don’t think the numbers ever recovered.
I agree 100% with SUS, it’s the writing that killed the soaps. Watch the old Ryan’s Hope on SoapNet if you want to see what was so great about the soaps in the old days. The “story arc” is a thing of the past – slow build-up to a satisfying pay-off. Doug Marland was a master of it (ATWT). Nowadays, there simply is no pay-off. If the villian in a story is “popular”, doesn’t matter how atrocious or vicious their crimes are (I’m specifically thinking of Adam on Y&R, but there are many others), the original story goes out the window, they rewrite it so that they can somehow keep the character around, and the integrity of the story is completely lost so that no one cares any more. And don’t even get me started on the fact that no one ever stays dead now. It used to be that a character being killed off was a real reason to grieve and get invested in it. Now, it’s almost a certainty that they’ll somehow rise from the dead, so you know it’s just a waiting game. The emotional tie has been completely removed.
I so wish that there would be a true Soap channel out there that would show the old soaps from the glory days. Such good stuff back in the day, it’s really sad what they’ve become.
Clunky plots and stunts instead of character driven storylines. The reason The Bold and the Beautiful is seeing a ratings decline is this very reason. I find the Brooke/Thomas storyline completely unbelievable and ludicrous. One Life to Live is an excellent example of character driven storylines, utilizing the old timers and newcomers equally. Unfortunately just as I got attached to it, they cancel it. How many soaps, hell any television series, can claim the surge in ratings and quality that this show has shown recently? Not a one.
1. How ratings are compiled (don’t understand why it doesn’t count if you watch more than 3 days later)
2. Having daytime executives who lack the ability, or desire, to think outside the box
3. The writing. The writing. The writing. Watching any vintage episode shows that in spades.
I think what really killed the soaps was the poorly written shows. If the shows had been written better fans would still watch but since they’re not people who were once faithful watcher’s have moved on to other things. There are way too many other things for people to do with their time, You’ve got tons of cable stations along with On Demand that allow you to watch what you want on your schedule and then there’s the internet that allows us to interact socially with others on FB, Twitter etc . and play online games through game systems.
I was once a huge fan of soaps in fact I watched them for 30 years but the writing just got crazier and crazier not to mention the writers would use the same storyline every couple of months for different characters so I got sick of the show I watched and started watching shows or movies on cable.
I’m sorry but I get annoyed when I see people blame reality tv. I don’t know many people who actually watch reality tv in the day. It would be easier to just say cable television because it encompasses everything. I am more likely to watch reruns than reality tv. But I am also more likely to surf the web than watch tv like most people my age (20s).