RA: UNCENSORED
Volume 1, Issue 2
BY NELSON BRANCO
Copyright 2011 Nelson Branco
INSIDE: Casting Scoop: Stacy Haiduk and John Driscoll return to Y&R! Exclusive —Dirty Soap’s Nadia Bjorlin on her Mama, Brandon, Venice, and her DAYS future! More Crystal Chappell Chatter: Is She Joining Y&R? GH Shocker: Lexi Ainsworth fired; will she be recast? A wedding on Dirty Soap? Y&R’s Melody Thomas Scott sounds off in Soap Opera Digest! Divorce City for John and Marlena on DAYS? Sean Kanan back on Y&R! Last week’s Soap Reviews; Next Week’s Preview Cheat Sheet! And every week: Unbelievable Blind Items!
UNCENSORED MASTHEAD:
FOUNDER/EDITOR: Nelson Branco
EDITOR AT LARGE: Denette Wilford
CONTRIBUTOR: Maree “Spin’s Vixenella” Wiggins
LETTER FROM THE FOUNDER/EDITOR:
Uncensored, Soap-style!
Follow Soap Opera Uncensored at: @nelliebranco or @SoapUncensored
UNCENSORED QUOTES OF THE WEEK:
“It became clear that the show was trying to tell me something.”
—Y&R’s Melody Thomas Scott to Soap Opera Digest over her contract showdown this past summer
Translation: Yeah, like take that pay cut, damn it!
“I’m not a self promoter.”
—MTS to Soap Opera Digest
Translation: Which explains all the framed magazine covers in my dressing room — and my over-the-top demands when I appear on them.
“I can’t believe you didn’t know this! Your moles are holding out on you!! I did clear out my dressing room, and I know this seems to irk people when they hear it. Why is it suddenly a tasty bit of gossip when an actor does this? If they are leaving your place of employment forever, why is it wrong to take your personal possessions home with you? Can someone please explain this to me?”
—MTS in the same interview
Translation: I cleared out my dressing room, yet I claimed on Twitter I didn’t know I wasn’t coming back to the show on my final day. (FYI: Sources say MTS did not completely clear out her dressing room; she still kept her creepy homage to her career on her walls, etc) and also balked at a cast mate for taking her parking spot after she tweeted she later claimed that she was essentially fired without being told (which was not the case). Get your stories straight, MTS! But welcome back!
“As long as I remain on contract to CBS — no.”
—Genie Francis to Soaps In Depth on the rumours she may return as Laura to GH
Translation: I’d rather eat shards of glass than work for ABC Day chief Brian Frons again!
“I have said in the pas, history begets story on our show, and the history of this character has been full embrace by this actress.”
—Y&R co-head writer Scott Hamner in Digest regarding Debbi Morgan’s arrival as Yolanda
Translation: Which is why we keep revising our history — including Yolanda’s name! God forbid, Debbi Morgan play a character who sounds blacker than we’d like.
"Today, television is the most powerful medium in the world. Tomorrow it will also be the most personal. There is no one future for television. It will be defined differently for everyone. I remember when cable happened and everyone said broadcast was dead and then satellite happened and everyone said cable was dead and then DVDs happened and everyone said everything was over. Nothing was over. I’m very optimistic about the future. What we’ve learned is the more devices people have to watch content on, the more television they watch. Digital is additive, not cannibalistic to our business. The key to everything remains good content. We have to keep pushing the edge with our shows, always be challenging the audience. Making them want more.”
—ABC Entertainment President Anne Sweeney embracing digital technology and the future of TV in a seminar.
Translation: All this applies — except for daytime scripted drama.
INSIDE SUDS:
Soap killing accomplice promoted!
Veteran television producer Randall Barone has been named vice president, Programming & Development, ABC Daytime, Brian Frons, president, Daytime, Disney/ABC Television Group, to whom he will report, announced it today. In this role Barone will continue to oversee the programming and development for the network's award-winning talk show The View, as well as The Chew.
For the past year and a half, Barone was instrumental in the creation and development of The Chew, working closely with executive producer Gordon Elliot and his team at Follow Productions. The Chew is the first show to debut on ABC Daytime in 15 years and combines the best of talk, food and lifestyle programming.
Barone is a recipient of both local Emmy Awards and national Emmy Awards for his work on "Good Morning America." He resides in Manhattan.
Considering the rampant ratings descent and horrible reviews for The Chew, all I can say is good luck, ABC Daytime! Good luck… and good night.
FAN CAMPAIGN OF THE YEAR:
Got your soap coupon?
If you haven’t filled out your soap opera coupon for a 24-7 sudsy channel… click here — and let your voice be heard!
https://sudz.tv/
Here’s what you need to know:
Explanation of Coupon Campaign
Answers to Your Questions about Coupon Campaign to Save Soaps
By: Spin's Vixenella
First, I have been working with several groups involved in the Save Soaps Campaign, including Soap Fans United and Sudz.TV Leadership Council. Here's some background information on the Coupon Campaign, and an explanation of how to participate.
1. According to social media experts, only 5-10% of soap fans are actively engaged in obtaining soap-related information on the Internet. Realizing over 80-90% of the soap audience is off-line, we had to come up with a method to reach off-line soap fans. One way to do that was to create a campaign online fans could actually share with off-line fans through the distribution of these coupons to their family, friends, and within their community. When Globe magazine offered to help us reach off-liners, we were thrilled. Now, Soaps in Depth ABC & CBS have offered to print the coupons as well, and we will reach even more off-line soap fans.
2. Why coupons? We wanted something easy and inexpensive so everyone could participate. We are aware Disney, ABC, Sony, advertisers and many others have had much 'Save Soaps' mail sent directly to them; however, we have no way to assess how much. We needed something fans could literally control such as these coupons. We can count them ourselves. We can show them to media, advertisers, cable/satellite providers, Sony, and ABC. We can prove unequivocally a certain number of people still want AMC, GH, OLTL, and the other soaps.
3. With SOAPnet going off the air, we decided to focus the campaign on cable/satellite providers to ask them for a NEW soap channel. We spoke to cable/satellite executives who told us if we could demonstrate "demand" from 500,000 people, they could guarantee someone would step up to provide a soap channel. Bear in mind, one of the reasons cable/satellite companies have been reluctant to let Disney turn SOAPnet into Disney Jr. is cable/satellite providers actually like the numbers and demographics SOAPnet provides. Despite the past few years, when Disney has literally tried to run SOAPnet into the ground...even at that, cable & satellite provide are interested in the sure-fire predominately female, 18-49 demo SOAPnet has consistently provided.
4. Any production company, including Sony, who might be interested in buying or LICENSING our soaps from ABC will need a place to air them. That makes a new soap channel even more important. We need to provide the venue or place for our soaps to air as soon as possible, so the need for a new
soap channel carried in as many households as possible is urgent, if we want All My Children and One Life to Live to continue with as little disruption as possible.
5. The coupon itself requires the name of the cable/satellite subscriber, i.e. whose name is on the account, the address of the subscriber, and the actual cable/satellite provider they use. It is minimal personal information, but we needed enough so that anyone interested in verifying the legitimacy of the results of the coupon campaign could do so. We need a coupon for every soap fan. For example, if you have both cable and satellite in your home, you can fill out 2 coupons...one for your cable provider and one for your satellite provider. If you do not have cable or satellite, but would be interested in