Eugene David<br>...The One-Minute Pundit

Posted 6:10 PM by Gene

"All My Children" won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series in 1992, 1994, and 1998. It has received more than 30 Emmy Awards in all, as has taken on such social issues as AIDS, abortion, cochlear implants, teenage alcoholism, racial bias, acquaintance rape, spousal abuse, homosexuality, Reyes syndrome, Vietnam MIAs, and more. The show aired daytime's first same-sex kiss between two lesbian characters, as well as its first same-sex wedding between two women.

"One Life to Live" won the Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series in 2002. Its daytime firsts include stories of interracial romance, illiteracy, medical misdiagnosis, racial prejudice, gang violence and teen pregnancy.

Among its most celebrated storylines was one in 1992 about a gay teen (the then-unknown Ryan Phillippe) that culminated with the display of the Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt. The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation named it Outstanding Daytime Drama in 1993, 2005 and 2010.

Here in a nutshell is one reason ESPNCORP is canceling these soaps, and why the genre won't last much longer. These programs started as simple escapism and ultimately TACKLED ISSUES. This is the equivalent of news hacks TELLING THE TRUTH. We'd like to chart the ratings in general of the soaps in the last thirty years -- we suspect they share something with the NIGHTLY NEWS. Certainly they wouldn't have been taped in the back of a broom closet with one camera if they still resonated with viewers. And while we truly believe The American Society of Willfully Ignorant Advertisers doesn't give a damn what it finances one can understand a very few of its members might find it easier to TACKLE ISSUES through "reality" shows than scripted dramas. We feel sorry for the fans who've invested their lives and their mental health in these soaps; as for the rest of us, we won't miss a thing.

“Because of all the amazing new series programming that is available to the viewer, it just can’t compete.”

Okay Talent Agent Jeff, if all this new series programming is so amazing why is drawing a 1.0 RATING an immortal achievement these days?