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
Alan Dysert, who played Sean Cudahy on ABC’s All My Children has died. He was 75-years-old. The news of his passing came from his wife Michele who shared via a Facebook post that Dysert died back on October 23.
“My heart is broken as I share that my beloved husband, Alan, passed away on October 23, 2026. While I am struggling to imagine life without him, I am forever grateful to have experienced what so many people spend their lives searching for — the love of a lifetime,” Michele expressed.
While a cause of death was not made public at this time, Michele admitted that Alan, “faced more than his share of health challenges over the years, yet he continued to approach life with determination, humor, and gratitude.”
Photo: ABC
Dysert wrote about his battle with a rare, aggressive and incurable cancer in his 2023 autobiography, Lights, Camera, Cancer! He spoke of having undergone four major cancer-related surgeries, and many rounds of chemotherapy and CT scans.
SEAN CUDAHY WAS ‘BAD GUY’ PERSONFIED
On All My Children, Dysert played Sean Cudahy, the con man villain to his brother, good guy, Tom Cudahy played by Richard Shoberg. Dysert played the role between 1980 and 1990 returning for multiple story arcs, which included being revealed to be the murderer of Sybil Thorne. He was also involved in several affairs including with the impressionable Devon McFadden (Tricia Pursley).
THE LIVES HE TOUCHED
Alan’s longtime agent Melinda Eisnagule told PEOPLE his death is a “loss to our community and to the acting community at large. He touched so many lives and made the industry and the world a better place every day with his positive energy and kindness.”
Dysert leaves behind his wife, Michele and his two sons Cody and Cooper and will be remembered by those who knew him for a career that spanned the theatre, film, TV and performance coaching, and of course being a part of the legacy of All My Children.
Share your remembrances and condolences on the passing of Alan Dysert, All My Children’s Sean Cudahy, via the comment section below.
All My Children
Mark Consuelos Celebrates Kelly Ripa’s 56th Birthday on ‘Live,’ But Remember When Wendy Williams Outed the Couple as Married Before Anyone at ‘All My Children’ Knew?
On the Friday, October 2 episode of Live with Kelly and Mark, the morning talk show marked the 56th birthday of Kelly Ripa (ex-Hayley Vaughan Santos, All My Children).
During the opening segment, Mark Consuelos (ex-Mateo Santos, All My Children) humorously comparing his wife to both Gandhi and Groucho Marx, reflecting on both her comedic ability and peaceful ways.
Later, they went on to discuss the origins of her name and the most popular picks to name babies back in the year she was born, 1970. They were Kimberly, Lisa, and Jennifer for girls and Michael, David, and James for the boys.
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
Ripa recalled that she learned she was almost named Kim. However, their neighbors at the time had two daughters Kelly and Kim, which is what her parents wanted to call them, but they settled on Kelly and and her younger sister, Linda.
At the conclusion of the episode, Mark rolled out a huge cake for his wife. It was, “Happy birthday from all of us here at Live and at home.” Next, he cut the cake, and Ripa grabbed his face and gave him a “thank you” kiss.
Photo: JPI
KELLY AND MARK TRIED TO KEEP THEIR VEGAS WEDDING ON THE DOWN LOW
All of this brings back memories of how Kelly and Mark’s Las Vegas wedding ceremony went public in 1996 while the two were still on All My Children playing Mateo Santos and Hayley Vaughan. In essence, they were outed by then radio host Wendy Williams! They discussed it on the talk show back in 2024.
In fact, the duo hid their marriage from their All My Children castmates for months, until they found out Williams got wind of the nuptials and spread the intel on the airwaves.
The two recalled their secret wedding on a 2024 episode of Live! “We’d eloped. It’d been a few months at that point. We’d been married for three months, nobody at All My Children knew we were even dating, much less married to each other. We’re brushing our teeth and we’ve got Wendy Williams’ radio show on. We’re listening, and she’s like, ‘I’ve got celebrity dish!”
EYEWITNESS
Next Ripa continued, “The celebrities,’ I guess they had a broad use of the term back then, was the fact that ‘two soap stars from All My Children, Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos eloped in Las Vegas.’ There was this eyewitness that worked in the Clark County courthouse that said we eloped, and the news broke, and we had to tell everybody we were married.”
Live With Kelly and Mark airs weekdays in syndication. Check your local listings for times in your area.
Share your birthday wishes for Kelly in the comment section, and let us know your thoughts on how Wendy Williams broadcast the news, unbeknownst to the All My Children newlyweds, that they tied the knot in Vegas? Check out Mark and the ‘Live’ studio audience singing ‘happy birthday’ to Kelly in the post below.
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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’ Alum Alan Dysert, Ex-Sean Cudahy, Passes Away at 75
Y&R’s Beth Maitland Talks How Traci Gives ‘A Lot of Viewers a Voice,’ and Daytime Emmy Nomination 41 Years After Her Emmy Win
GENERAL HOSPITAL Preview: Brook Lynn Gets a Shock from Jude, Nina Gets a Reprieve, and Ava’s in the Hot Seat
DAYS OF OUR LIVES Preview: Xander Fights for His Life, Halloween in Salem, Lani Returns to the Salem PD
Y&R’s Jason Thompson and Mark Grossman Deliver the ‘Power Performances of the Week’
Tabitha Brown and Kandi Burruss Guest Star on ‘Beyond the Gates’ for Dani’s ‘Welcome to Your Life’ TV Special; What Could Go Wrong?
53rd Annual Daytime Emmy Awards Presenters Announced
‘The Bold and the Beautiful’ Cast Dish on Steffy, Finn & Carter, Daphne Baby Drama! (Exclusive)
Days of our Lives’ Conner Floyd Talks Dominic Marino Mystery, Chad and Belle, and Susan Seaforth Hayes (Exclusive)
THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS Preview: What Has Happened to Jill?
GENERAL HOSPITAL Preview: Brook Lynn Gets a Shock from Jude, Nina Gets a Reprieve, and Ava’s in the Hot Seat
DAYS OF OUR LIVES Preview: Xander Fights for His Life, Halloween in Salem, Lani Returns to the Salem PD
Y&R’s Jason Thompson and Mark Grossman Deliver the ‘Power Performances of the Week’
‘Beyond the Gates’ Marquita Goings on Hayley’s Pregnancy, ‘Friendship’ with Leslie, and Working with Timon Kyle Durrett (Exclusive)
THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL Preview: One Woman Lies to Another, While Two Sisters Tear Each Other Apart!
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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).