General Hospital
Steve Burton Shares He Starts Taping Back at General Hospital “Next Week”
One of the most highly-anticipated returns this winter and early spring will be that of Steve Burton when he reprises his signature soap role of Jason Morgan on General Hospital.
Following Burton’s announcement at the end of the General Hospital: 60 years of Stars and Storytelling special on ABC on January 4th, the series made it be known that Jason’s return would be imminent.
Now on the January 31st episode of the Daily Drama Podcast hosted by Burton and Bradford Anderson (Spinelli, GH), at the top of the show, Steve revealed he starts “next week” back at GH, although the Daytime Emmy-winner said he did not have an exact start date.
Photo: JPI
Anderson also shared that he is working next week at GH, but was not sure of the scripts or his scenes yet. Burton also stated that before going back to tape new episodes he needed to get a haircut in order to slip back into the role of Jason.
When viewers last saw Jason, it was back in November of 2021 when the character was presumed dead following the collapse of a tunnel.
Photo: ABC
In addition, since Burton’s GH return was made official, there has been a head writing change. Patrick Mulcahey and Elizabeth Korte are in, while Chris Van Etten and Dan O’Connor are out, making it all the more intriguing of just how the writing team will craft Jason’s story going forward.
So, excited to know that Steve Burton will begin taping new episodes as Jason next week at GH? What storyline would you come up with to explain Jason’s survival from the collapse of the tunnel and where he has been? Comment below.
I would like to see more of Jason Quartermaine than Jason Morgan. Carly would just not understand, but after all these years, Sonny would get it. Monica will be more than thrilled.
Just how often do we get to see Monica?
The timing lends credence to the speculation Chris & Dan were let go because of their plan for Jason’s return. Burton’s taping next week, which indicates Jason will be on screen early/mid March (exactly when Pat/Liz material is scheduled to air).
Hoping the new writers will write off Drew. No offense to the actor I think he’s wonderful and I love his Hallmark and GAC movies but this Drew was becoming totally unlikable.
Couldn’t he play stone cold on Y & R again or keep playing stone cold on DAYS? He is an awful actor! Gah, not looking forward to him taking over the show again. Aside from the equally hard to watch actor who plays Drew, the show has been great in his absence. So much screen time for old favourites! I’d hate to see it be all stone cold all the time again.
Better than “all Nina all the time” which is why the last two years of GH have been such a toilet spiral.
My guess is that the hired gun who’s been going after Sonny, Anna and Ava is a brainwashed Jason, working for that bad guy from the WSB and Pikeman, and previously captive of Viktor Cassadine. The giveaways have been all the comments about the assasin’s skills and inside knowledge. My guess is he’s missing his shots because some part of him doesn’t want to kill Sonny.
According to that idiotic “brain mapping” story from 2017 – which they came up with to explain how Jason’s memories ended up in Drew’s brain – Jason cannot be brainwashed, due to the fact that his multiple previous head injuries has left his brain in a similar state to a hard drive with damaged sectors that cannot be “over-written”.
Now on the other horn, Drew still has all of those Jason memories in his head. So he would have the knowledge of Sonny’s island and all of the secutrity protocols used there already stored in his head.
And many mortals have observed that something has been “off” with Drew ever since he recovered from the prison beatdown he suffered at the hands of Cyrus’s paid inmate thugs. I’m thinking something was knocked loose in his brain which might have somehow reactivated his previous brainwashing.
If Jason still has that tarot card in his pocket from his last trip to Cassadine Island, he might be the only one who can fix his brother’s brain, when he finally makes it back to Port Charles.
I forgot about the details of that stupid mess from 2017. Maybe I just forwarded past that. I bet the writers forgot too. My money’s still on Jason. I am deeply dreading this whole thing.
I hope they make Jason a really bad guy. It would be beyond Steve Burton’s limited acting ability to play anything other than the one character he plays on every show, but it would be more entertaining to see Jason go bad.
Jason is also Married to Carley but no one seems to be mentioning that.
Well not really…
They did have a wedding, but it wasn’t a valid marriage since Sonny wasn’t so dead after all.
Yay yay
If you watch one of the recent daily drama podcast with Burton and Bradford Anderson, Steve indicates that he is going to retire in a few years with his role on General Hospital. So it sounds like this is going to be his acting swan song even if it is for a few years he mentioned three to four years
Is anyone really ever “retired”?
I love that Jane Elliot has returned, love that Leslie Charleston shows up when she can…
And mostly.. the paycheque must be welcomed
Realistically, I doubt GH itself will be around 5 years from now, so that being the case, I believe Jason will be around for the remainder of GH’s existence.
Very true… and some days.. I wonder if anything will be !
You’ve been casting the death knell for GH for years (appropriate for your screen name). When Frank took over in 2012, few would have guessed GH would be around 12 years later.
It’s still pulling in respectable numbers for daytime, is a valued lead-in to most affiliates early news programs and Frank remains a wizard with the budget – refreshing and building new sets over the last 4 years.
Because of the unique ownership structure (the same Disney/ABC division produces, distributes and airs GH) there’s no extra hands in the kettle like the other 3 soaps. The recent primetime special – not airing in the summer or a dead Friday shows the network is still committed to the show.
ABC/Di$ney seems to be on board… for now. They had the primetime special, the change in head writers, bringing Jason back, all of these things do point to at least a short term commitment to reverse the toilet spiral of the last two years.
But on the other horn, we have the rumors that Di$ney is looking to sell off ABC entirely. Hell forbid somebody like Zaslav & Malone end up with the network and they start cutting any TV show that involves any sort of writing or acting and replaces it with reality dragonshit, as they have done on almost every channel involved in the Warner/Discovery fiasco. Even if it’s not that drastic of a takeover, you might still end up with a new regime that doesn’t have a lot of love for a show that’s over 60 years old, from a genre which is nearly extinct. They might switch it to Hulu only (much like Days moved to Peacock) assuming there’s still a favorable relationship between ABC and Hulu under whatever this new ownership situation is. Hulu itself might merge with “Disney+”, since that seems to be the streaming outlet for Di$ney’s content outside of the US & Hell. A “stream only” model might alienate some of the show’s older audience, as there is some percentage of that demographic who are still on the “technophobic” side of things, despite the fact that streaming video is very much a mainstream practice in 2024.
Very happy if people are happy that still watch the show! But give me the late Billy miller anytime I will never watch this show again the treatment of him I will never forgive you are the biggest idiots fake people I have ever known and trust me I know them all
Excuse me the show did nothing to billy Miller he left on his own ,he wasn’t a child,some fans need to stop treating their favorite actors like children
Believe it or not, there’s a small faction of mortals who think there was a “conspiracy” by Maurice Benard, Steve Burton, and others to force Billy Miller off GH and ruin his life. A Devil has tried to reason with such folks on another website, and they still push this theory.
The reality of course, is that Billy wanted to take his chances on a prime time career. Nothing wrong with that, in and of itself, it’s just that his timing could not have been worse. He left GH in 2019, having lined up recurring roles on the Apple TV series “Truth Be Told” and the USA Network show “Suits”. The Apple show was an “anthology” model, so they only needed him for the one season, and “Suits” pretty much fell apart after Meghan Markle quit the show and ran off to England to marry some ginger kid named Harry. Billy thought he would get a new gig in the next “pilot” season. Which he very well might have… except that was 2020. And nobody made new pilots after March of that year. And by the time things were “back to normal” in the TV industry from that, then you had the two strikes in 2023 which effectively shut everything down again. Except for – ironically – the soaps, because the actors were on a different contract.
A Devil won’t speculate on the reasons why Billy didn’t try to come back to GH (as he would have fit the character far better than Mr. Hallmark does)
I do wish for success of any actor that is discovered thru daytime and then leaves to try to find greater success elsewhere… history shows it is only a few that do achieve great success, I have admiration for the long term actors that make daytime a solid career.
It is those actors that make the 4 remaining show what they are… still entertaining regardless of how poor some may feel of storylines at times, we all keep watching.
The latest ratings are out for the week of October 26-30, 2026 and the big takeaways include: that CBS daytime’s Beyond the Gates was separated by only 23,000 viewers behind third place (of the soaps) General Hospital! For the last several weeks, Beyond the Gates has been closing the gap on this year’s winner for Outstanding Daytime Drama Series, and continuing to best GH in the key demos.
According to the latest Nielsen ratings breakdown from Soap Opera Network, the final week of October brought Beyond the Gates 1.790 million on average tuning-in and the show set a season high in total viewers. Meanwhile, General Hospital hit a new season low! The long-running ABC soap had 1.813 million for the week, and once again the series did not go over the 2 million mark.
Meanwhile, in the key Women 18-49 demo, Beyond the Gates was firmly ahead of GH with a rating share of 0.21, while General Hospital had 0.17 rating share.Then, in the key Women 25-54 demo, Beyond the Gates was once again ahead of the ABC soap with a ratings share for that demo at 0.30 while GH came in with 0.26.
Photo: CBS
MORE BY THE NUMBERS
In addition and comparatively, Beyond the Gates +22,000 viewers week-to-week, and had the largest gains in viewership year-to-year in daytime TV with +267,000 from this in 2025.. However, General Hospital seems to be going in reverse. The show was down -56,000 viewers week-over-week and down -22,000 year-over-year .
BEYOND THE GATES
Let’s take a look at some of the storylines that had people tuning-in to Beyond the Gates during the ratings week:
Hayley (Marquita Goings) attempted a massive shocker regarding her pregnancy and tried to use it to extract money from Bill Hamilton (Timon Kyle Durrett). Although, Bill saw right through her game, he demanded a paternity test, and made it clear he has no intention of raising the child—planning instead to pay her off to take the baby and leave. Meanwhile, Hayley confided her plan to her cousin Randy (Maurice P. Kerry).
Jacob Hawthorne (Jibre Hordges) and Naomi Hamilton (Arielle Prepetit) clashed over Jacob’s ongoing investigation into The Impaler, causing significant strain in their marriage. At the same time, Smitty (Mike Manning) considered taking matters into his own hands—including potentially heading to Mexico for evidence—while Martin Richardson (Brandon Claybon) worried about what comes next.
Photo: ABC
GENERAL HOSPITAL
Over at General Hospital for the ratings period, the story served up included:
Carly (Laura Wright) and Valentin (James Patrick Stuart) teamed up to investigate what really happened to Jack Brennan (Chris McKenna). Later, Danny (Asher Antonyzyn) leads them to Jack’s dead body.
Jude (Wil Traval) dropped a bombshell claim to Alexis (Nancy Lee Grahn); that he is Phoebe’s father, while Brook Lynn (Amanda Setton) and Chase (Josh Swickard) signed their divorce papers.
Then, Danny caught Rocco (Finn Carr) and Scout (Kayden Brenna Tokarski) sharing a kiss, plus the shocking return of Heather Webber (Alley Mills) capped the week.
Now the questions become; without having much promotional synergy in the ABC day-part to draw more eyeballs it is not helping but hurting General Hospital. It seems Beyond the Gates is also a benefactor of a one-two-three punch of CBS soaps (Y&R, B&B and BTG) and promotion.
However, that still doesn’t take away the fact that Beyond the Gates is close to besting GH in all ratings category as they go head-to-head in some markets across the country.
So, are you excited to see Beyond the Gates climb in the ratings? Are you concerned for General Hospital? Do you think they can stave off Beyond the Gates in total viewers or will the upstart soap overtake them in the next ratings report? Share your thoughts in the comment section.
Antonio Sabáto Jr., the former Jagger Cates of General Hospital and GH: Night Shift, and the former Dante Damiano of The Bold and the Beautiful has issued his first public statement since the incident involving his son, Jack’s arrest in Alaska for a fatal hit-and-run.
Jack is the son of Sabáto Jr. and Oscar-nominated actress Virginia Madsen, and according to court documents obtained by KTUU Jack, was allegedly driving a white Chevy Tahoe when he hit and killed Carl Simmonds, 42, near an intersection in Anchorage around 5:35 a.m. on Monday, November 9.
The reports indicated that Jack fled the scene — but later decided to called the cops to say he hit “something” that “suddenly appeared in the road” while he was “doing late-night DoorDashing.”
Photo: NBC
Now, Antonio has taken to his Instagram breaking his silence on the situation, sharing, “At this time, my family and I are navigating an extremely sensitive and deeply personal matter.”
He added, “As a father, my love for my children remains unconditional, and my priority is the well-being of my family. We ask that the public and members of the media honor our privacy during this difficult time and keep us all in your thoughts and prayers.”
The soap alum concluded, “I also wish to extend my heartfelt condolences to the family and loved ones of the gentleman who tragically lost his life. My thoughts and prayers are with them as well. We sincerely appreciate your compassion, understanding, and respect for the privacy of everyone affected.”
Jack Sabáto was arraigned in court on Tuesday, November 10 with bail set at $5,000, and a no-driving order and the potential of $5,000 penalty fees if he fails to attend future court appearances.
Antonio is the father to Jack, 34, daughter, Mina Sabato, 24 and son, Antonio Sabáto III, 15.
This is a developing story. You can check out Antonio’s official statement below.
So, let us know your thoughts on this tragic hit-and-run, which claimed the life of another man, and Antonio’s statement, via the comment section below.
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Sonny (Maurice Benard) and Ava’s (Maura West) daughter Avery looks quite different, starting on today’s November 9 episode of General Hospital. That’s because GH has made Avery into a full-blown teenager and the role is now being played by actress Alya Bullington.
In her debut, the Tennessee native was thrown into the deep soap waters with Daytime Emmy winners, Maurice Benard and Eden McCoy (Josslyn). Bullington weighed-in to TV Insider about her first scene which featured Avery overhearing a fight between Sonny and Josslyn.
She explained “It was something I have never done before, I did not have a lot of experience with the screaming and the crying stuff, but I got my first script, and I was like, ‘OK, this is a huge opportunity to learn so much about how that stuff works and to become this character that I have never even tried playing before.’”
Photo: ABC
THE TEENAGED VERSION OF AVERY WILL HAVE A LOT TO CONTEND WITH
Speaking of working with McCoy, Bullington shared, “She’s incredible. I remember her just laughing and making jokes on set, and then the minute that they started taping, she just locked in and she cried immediately, and my first thought was, ‘I want to be able to do that.’
The soap opera newcomer added, “I think she just inspired me so much because she is so great and she can just lock into whatever character she wants to in the moment.”
The character of Avery was born back in 2014, but as recently as the October 8 episode of General Hospital, the character was suddenly referred to as a teenager. This is the second young female character in recent months to be aged up following the casting of Kayden Brenna Tokarski as Scout Cain.
As for her take on Avery and what’s ahead, Alya said,“She’s emotional, and she’s curious, and she’s a really fun person to play because so much stuff is happening in her life. I think she’s kind of confused about what’s happening and what to believe.”
So, what do you think about General Hospital making Avery a teenager? Are you excited to see the conflict between Sonny, Ava and Avery now that they have aged up the character? Share your thoughts and welcome Alya to GH via the comment section below.
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