OUCH!

I just wish I could say I was surprised.

Ok I plead ignornance but do these local affiliates still have the ability to continue airing GH during that timeframe? If GH is not a syndicated program, how does that work. Even if they don't pick Katie dont they have to pickup some other syndicated program or develop a local program.

HMM WJLA-7 in Washington, D.C. is doing the same thing next year

I'm not surprised either. I just wish that the GH folks could get everything in place (get rid of what doesn't work, tell some good stories) so that when it also makes the leap it's in a strong position a la OLTL and not a hot Kane mess a la AMC.

I for one can't stand Katie. I find her spunky attitude passive aggressively grating and I cannot stand that smile.

wow, well, hmm... there ya go. and so it begins is right.

MY affiliate won't comment on the programming... but I totally was thinking

STEVE HARDY! ahahaa not HARVEY

Ugh. I can't stand Steve Harvey and the fact that he's some advice guru now makes me ill. I'll take ten Katie Couric talk shows any day over Mr. Harvey's backward ass.

For a split-second, I thought this show would turn around when Garin Wolf took over, but it's still awful! The new Kate and new Maxie look like they were recasted for when the show goes to Prospect Park. I know Kirstin Storms is supposed to come back, but I have my doubts. (Did anyone think that she may be too expensive to continue in the role?)

I actually think wrapping it up nicely the way AMC and OLTL have done it, would be best for this show and the fans.

Let's say the show continues for ten more years. Who's going to replace Steve Burton, Laura Wright, Kelly Manaco and others in the storylines? Shrew-lu Spencer? Michael Corinthos? There is no way they can have the show revolve around Michael and survive, but that's how it looks to be heading.

I say, bring a lot of vets back and give the show the goodbye it deserves. I think it's run out of creative steam.

Wait... so Katie isn't airing on the ABC station in Orlando, but the ABC station got the hour back anyway??

The funny thing is that we asked for diversity in daytime, but it seems to not be coming from the soaps. From Harvey, to the Queen we seem to have seen more African Americans hired in daytime to helm or be apart of talk show's or game show's. Be careful what you wish for and how you wish for it.

I'm confused. What good is it supposed to do to write to the affiliate? Presumably, ABC giving that hour back to the affiliates is going to coincide with GH's cancellation, right? So, it's not as though they can keep airing a show that's no longer in production, and if the NBC affiliate snapped up Katie before ABC affiliate could get it, what option do they have? They have to air SOMETHING at 3pm.

What am I missing?

The longest-running program on the ABC network, which has occupied the same timeslot since 1963, is being replaced in Orlando by Steve Harvey. Many questions here but my first is WHO IS STEVE HARVEY? I have never heard of this person.

Thats the question I asked and no one responded or just doesn't know

GH is no longer going to be airing on ABC Daytime in that timeslot. SO what is this affiliate supposed to do and what are people writing in supposed to be complaining about. I don't get it.

And so it begins...

I said a long long time ago ABC has lost their grip. They are making my stomach turn now. 2 months left to see what PP is going to do. I hope it all goes well to ABC gets it up their ying yang.

Yeah, writing to the affiliates is not going to do any good.

The analogy to Another World isn't quite applicable here. With Another World, the show was offered by the network to the affiliates in the 2pm timeslot; the issue was many affiliates either preempted the show to another (less desirable) timeslot or didn't air the show at all.

Basically, unless the station is an O&O, the affiliate has the option not to air a network show or air it off pattern. This seems to happen a lot more in daytime than primetime - a major reason why the networks stopped programming the noon timeslot (on the East Coast) and the 4pm timeslot many years ago.

In General Hospital's case, the network is completely giving up the 3pm timeslot - they aren't going to program GH or any other show in that slot. That leaves it up the affiliate to program that hour - so the only way writing the affiliate to ask them to air GH is if GH is moved to syndication in the fall of 2012.

If people want to save GH, they need to be writing to ABC directly.

Steve Harvey? LOL! HaHahaHaHa...takes breath...HaHaHahA!!!

LOL! Why would they not carry Katie in Orlando?! I'm going to have to call that station, lolz!

Is it me or does the whole world seem to be going crazy?

The ABC affiliate isn't airing it because the NBC affiliate picked up Katie first. So it IS airing in Orlando, just on a different channel.

Not good. Not good at all.

We all know the writing on the wall for this show; ABC execs went on and said GH was going to be around for a long time. Jill Farren Phelps went in on one of the mags and said we hope to make it to 2013 for our 50th anniversary, and stay on beyond that.

ABC clearly wants out, and the affiliates have to get that time back. I was reading that non ABC O&O will air Katie. WSB-Atlanta, WJLA-DC,
WXYZ-Detroit, WFAA-Dallas, KNXV-Phoenix, WCVB-Boston, KMGH-Denver (NBC affiliate KING-TV/ Seattle, WA)

If The Revolution don't make is there any chance GH will up to 2pm?

Just a couple of points of order:

1. This isn't the first time ABC has ceded time back to affiliates when it comes to its soaps. In recent history, The Edge of Night, Loving and The City (which never recovered some of the affiliates who had been airing early newscasts in place of Loving) all did not have full affiliate clearance, though in some cases (EON in particular) they ran for years. (NBC and CBS have also ceded affiliates traditional daytime soap airings as well, most notably in recent years Guiding Light, which bounced around several affiliate schedules during the final years of its run).

2. Affiliates, including O&O's, can actually air whatever they want once the time has been ceded to them by their network. So writing to affiliates to air GH (or any other show) in a preferred time slot actually has merit. However, it must be noted that affiliates make these decisions based on ratings (of course) and local profitability (the number of local ads they can sell during whatever occupies the time slot in question). if an affiliate has decided to change soaps schedule (move or remove), it is because in that specific market, it might make some sense for them to try a program that can bring in more viewers more cheaply and/or profitably.

3. These are market by market decisions. Many affiliates will not want to mess with their schedules at all; others will be willing to take a chance and change things around, either moving or not airing GH at all.

The final analysis: pray for Prospect Park's TOLN to succeed.

While it is sad to see this genre die a slow death on network TV, it's even more sad for those of us who have tried to fall back in love with this show after a decade long spiral into the sexist and disgusting show it has become.

GH has only existed in the past for quite some time. The show that has aired at 3pm on ABC hasn't been GH for a decade. Many of us have already mourned the loss. We mourned it every time a beloved character was killed (literally) or was made to do things out of character in order to fit into some moronic, or worse, a sadistic plot. We mourned it every time a female character endangered herself in order to be romanced by a serial killer. We mourned it every time those same serial killers were featured day after day, while the show's leading family was only used as a sweeps device as they were killed off one by one.

So while it's sad to see affiliates changing their schedules, can I really blame them? Perhaps the owner of the Orlando station tuned into the episode where Lisa was threatening to kill people with Robin's blood. Maybe that owner thought a talk show would be better programming. And you know what, that owner might be right.

I can sum up the slow demise of GH in three words: Jill Farren Phelps. I agree with the poster who said GH has not been itself for the better part of the last decade. There were some highs, but more lows. Wendy Riche should have never been dismissed. She ran the show from '92 to '01(a period most consider GH to be at its peak) - a producer that many actors to this day continue to praise. She didn't see eye to eye with Bob Guza and Bob Guza won out and got to stay. Enter showkiller, JFP and we've had a deadly combo running this show for 10 years.

I've been a loyal viewer since 1989. I've never been more dismayed with this show than I am right now. Part of me almost wants it canceled because they are turning it into a mockery so the blame will focus on the show and not the ABC brass when they finally cancel it. I can picture the statements now. "Well the ratings just kept declining." Yea idiots b/c you kept JFP in place for 10 years and brought in some hack writer to headwrite stories for this iconic show that is just being disrespected left and right over money and backstage politics. Who cares if he was already on the writing staff. He's clearly not HW material. I respect the show that has entertained me for so many years and to see this happen to it slowlyyyyy in front of our eyes is just horrible. Patrick Mulcahey was correct when he implied that Garin was brought in to sink the ship. I hope GH can prove me wrong and turn around, but I don't think it will. I think ABC is determined for it to fail and make it look like GH's fault. Obviously by keeping JFP for 10+ years and hiring GW it is ABC's fault.

Confused here yet again. I thought Couric was exclusively an ABC show and not syndicated. Why would NBC be airing it?

Katie is syndicated by ABC's syndication arm, the same way Regis & Kelly is (also not an ABC network show).

WAS512 - When ABC cancelled OLTL and AMC everyone wrote to ABC even as the rumors began. In the end it was rumored that they laughed at fans. I for one would NEVER ---- EVER write, call, beg, plead with that station ever again. They made fools out of all of us.

Its sad that General Hospital will be cancelled in the near future. I have been watching GH since 1977. I was a young kid moving with my family from place to place and always in a new school and remembering always feeling alone. I started watching General Hospital because that is what my mother and sister were watching when we got home from school. It started capturing my attention when Luke and Laura met at the campus disco and Laura accidentally got herself locked in a closet in Luke's office and overheard a conversation between Frank Smith and his henchmen about killing Mitch Williams. From that point on, Luke would do anything to protect the love of his life Laura. After that I was hooked, I would run home from school as fast as possible to see the show and felt my heart race when that theme music started and watched the ambulance race through those wrought Iron gates toward the Hospital.
The summer of 1979 was the best ever watching Luke and Laura on the run from Frank Smith, watching their adventures trying to find The Left Handed Boy so they could save themselves from certain death from Frank Smiths men. Wondering if Hutch was going to kill them or after spending so much time with them that he would spare their lives out of friendship. The following year unfolded with Luke taking a job at ELQ and Laura working as a receptionist there as well. Now GH exploded as soon as the Ice Princess was introduced and Soap Opera was changed forever. General Hospital became a national phenomenon and everyone was glued to their television set at 3:00. Every major star in Hollywood wanted to be on the show and Gloria Monty replied to their requested by saying "I don't need stars, I make them". I recall an interview on Entertainment Tonight when a reporter asked Gloria Monty, "How long do you think will General Hospital be on Television?" and Gloria replied, "As long as there is Television".
When Gloria was hired back in 1977 she was brought in to usher General Hospital off the air, instead she made television history by recreating an entire genre. After that all the soaps followed, they all created adventure story lines, they all created young super couples. General Hospital set the level of excellence in Production and Writing so high no one could keep up.
So even though I stopped watching the show awhile back that probably saved me as a young kid, I will be broken-hearted the day it goes off the air. GH is woven so tightly into who I became that I can't imagine television without GH. It's a shame that the daytime programming department at ABC destroyed these shows with such intent and malice because they meant so much to so many people for nearly half a century. I'm absolutely positive a network will never have so many millions of people become so emotionally bonded to any of their programming again as the fans of General Hospital were to their show when the powers that be actually cared about the show and put out a program they were proud of.

You are right MissingtheoldGH.

Wendy Riche should never have been shown the door by Angela Shapiro. NEVER.