The Demise of Soaps

Daily Soap Operas are everyone's favourite guilty pleasure.  We tune into find out who the daddy is, who's shacking up with whom, or who's blackmail whom; or what long lost sibling son/ daughter have shown up now- it's a piece of escapism.  And bit, bit these shows are dying off.  First CBS cancelled As The World Turns, and Guiding Light, replacing them with lifestyle programming, and now ABC is at the cancellation game; about to do away with One Life To Live, and All My Children.  They'll replace them with two lifestyle food shows, one featuring Mario Batali.  And now the network has announced it's inked a deal with Katie Couric for her very own talk show; and this is rumoured to spell the end of its third network soap opera: General Hospital.

I think it's a trend.  The networks will start running the reality programming, and talk shows, and then the minute after the ratings start slipping they'll yank the shows and have nothing to replace them with.  Then soaps will be back, and according to fans at least, all will be right with the world.

  I admit, when I work at home, I don't watch television during the day, but I do tape General Hospital daily and watch it later. The presence new talk shows, and lifestyle type programming won't make me change my habits.  When faced with the option of that, or turning off the television, soap fans will probably do the most powerful thing they can think of; they'll probably turn off the television.


Soaps are expensive television

Today in History: D-Day.. fighting then, and now

June 6, 1944 was D-day.  The allies stormed the beaches at Normandy and began their campagin to liberate Europe after nearly five years at war.  Canadian troops fought at Juno Beach, and a group of them gained the most territory of any allied soldiers.  They fought in Italy, France and liberated Holland. 

One war began its ending 67 years ago, and a second begins its ending today.  It was announced on the news, Canadian troops fought their final battle in Afghanistan.  Canada will pull out of its combat role, reverting to humanitarian, and training role.  It was planned by their Afghan National Army allies, making it oddly poetic that it should happen today of all days.  But it is an appropriate reminder that we haven't always been the peacekeepers we'd like to think of Canadians as. We've been fighters; doing the impossible, and doing it well.

It's a saying we repeat every Remembrance Day: "We Will remember them."  We should remember them; the glories of the past, and what our soldiers continue doing now.