Is General Hospital renewal a scam?

There’s a new rumor going around.

I’m not sure where it started, but I’ve seen it repeated on three different message boards now. It’s probably a good time to address it.

The rumor goes as follows: ABC network big wigs are going to announce their daytime lineup sometime in the next two weeks. That lineup is going to allow local affiliates to decide whether or not they will carry ‘General Hospital’ or an extra hour of ‘Good Morning America’ in the afternoon. If more affiliates want to carry ‘Good Morning America,’ then GH will still end in September (and the writers will only have a few months to wrap things up).

Now, I want to stress that this is just a rumor. And, just like those idiots who get their self-esteem by pretending they have sources and making up spoilers on soap message boards, this could be a total load of crap.

However, something bothered me about the announcement about GH’s renewal when it happened a few weeks ago and I couldn’t put my finger on it then. This rumor addresses my problem.

When the announcement that GH would be renewed was made, ABC also stressed that they were adding on an hour of ‘Good Morning America’ in the afternoon and cancelling ‘The Revolution.’ By my calculations, that still only leaves one hour of television time for GH and GMA to split.

Another hour of GMA would be infinitely cheaper to produce than GH – and even the now cancelled ‘The Revolution.’

While GH’s ratings have gone up, it’s still more expensive to produce than reality television. And, quite frankly, GH has three of the highest paid actors in daytime history on their roster right now in Steve Burton, Maurice Benard and Anthony Geary.

In this day and age, when soaps are slashing their budgets and actually letting veterans go instead of paying them a fair wage (Peter Reckell of ‘Days of Our Lives’ is a prime example), I’ve often wondered how GH has managed to pay Burton, Benard and Geary so much money.

Sure, they decimated the Quartermaines and benched longtime actors like Jackie Zeman and John J. York, but GH managed to keep paying those three a lot longer than I would have thought possible.

As far as affiliates go, I know that there have been a handful of affiliates in different states that have already shelved Soapnet (before it actually makes the transition to Disney Junior) – so it would make sense for them to shelve GH if given the option, I guess.

If this is what happens – and I choose to remain skeptical for my own mental health reasons – ABC will have made enemies of virtually every daytime fan they ever had. It would have been easier if they’d just come out and cancelled GH – rather than leading on fans.

If this isn’t true, I have to marvel again at how people get their jollies on the Internet. Stick with porn people. That way the only people you’re abusing are yourselves.

Either way, I guess we'll find out in the next few weeks if that sense of relief we felt was really just a cruel ploy by ABC.

 

What do you think? Would ABC actually do this to fans?