Contract Talks May Delay Soap's Move to the Web

Prospect Park, a production company that plans to shift the soap operas “All My Children” and “One Life To Live” to the Web from television, has run into a contractual roadblock.

It is likely to interrupt production of “All My Children” for several months, a person briefed on the production said Monday.

“All My Children” was expected to end its run on ABC on Sept. 23 and start up on an unspecified Web site a few days later. But the person briefed on the production, who insisted on anonymity because of Prospect Park’s choice not to comment, said that “All My Children” could be placed on hiatus until the first quarter of 2012.

“One Life To Live” is scheduled to end its run on ABC in January 2012, so it is less likely that the negotiations would interrupt that show.

Shifting the soap operas to the Web from TV will require changes to production budgets, and those changes will require negotiations with the guilds and unions that represent the production staffs on the shows.

Prospect Park seemed to acknowledge this in a statement on Monday. It read in part, “We are in the process of working out the essential terms of our proposed collective bargaining agreements with the appropriate guilds and unions, which we must do prior to firming up deals with above- and below-the-line talent. We will provide updates as needed.”

ABC announced in April that it was canceling the two soap operas, much to the chagrin of fans. Prospect Park announced a deal three weeks ago to resuscitate the shows by licensing them from ABC and streaming them on the Internet.

The production company emphasized that the arrangement would not affect the quality of the shows.

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Canceled ABC Soaps Find New Home Online

Ron Tom/ABCA scene from “All My Children,” one of two canceled ABC soaps, with “One Life to Live,” that will be given a second life online.

Three months after ABC canceled the soap operas “All My Children” and “One Life to Live,” the network said Thursday that the shows would be given a second life online by Prospect Park, a two-year-old media and production company.

Prospect Park will produce the two shows and distribute them “via online formats and additional emerging platforms including Internet-enabled television sets,” the companies said in a joint news release.

Fans of the shows — thousands of whom had signed petitions and a few of whom had even protested in public about the cancellations — were relieved to hear of the deal. “Way to go soap fans!!!,” one fan, Sandi Taylor, wrote on one of the Facebook pages that was formed in April to appeal ABC’s decision.

The deal was first reported by The New York Post on Thursday morning.

The companies characterized it as a multiple-year and multiple-platform licensing arrangement, meaning that Prospect Park will produce and distribute the shows, but ABC will retain the intellectual property. They said that under the terms of the arrangement, episodes of the shows will be just as long and just as high quality online as they were on television.

Jeffrey Kwatinetz and Rich Frank, the founders of Prospect Park, declined interview requests on Thursday, but they said in a statement, “We believe that by continuing to produce the shows in their current hour format and with the same quality, viewers will follow the show to our new, online network.”

Mr. Kwatinetz and Mr. Frank are taking a bold step by trying to bring soap operas — a format that originated in radio — onto the Internet, a new and mostly untested medium for premium video programming. They asserted in their statement that the “driving force” in the transition from television to online video was “to have outstanding programs that people want to watch.”

Others in the media industry are gradually beginning to make similar bets. In March, Netflix said that it would present the debut of a one-hour drama, “House of Cards,” on its service instead of buying the show after a television broadcast, and in June the conservative commentator and entertainer Glenn Beck said that he had started an online television network, GBTV.

The soap operas will most likely end their ABC runs on a Friday and start up online the next Monday. Their online homes have not yet been announced.

“All My Children” is set to end on ABC on Sept. 23; “One Life to Live” is set to end on the network in January.

“I’m just so happy that ABC found a home where the legacies of ‘All My Children’ and ‘One Life to Live’ can continue. I’m excited for their future with Prospect Park,” Agnes Nixon, the creator of both shows, said in a statement. “It takes a lot of living to make a soap opera a serial, and the wonderful teams on both shows have done just that.”

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