Comments on: All My Commodities: Valuing the Online Soap Opera http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2013/04/30/all-my-commodities-valuing-the-online-soap-opera/ Responses to Media and Culture Fri, 12 Feb 2016 19:35:04 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.7.5 By: Danielle Williams http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2013/04/30/all-my-commodities-valuing-the-online-soap-opera/comment-page-1/#comment-404131 Wed, 01 May 2013 12:35:20 +0000 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/?p=19766#comment-404131 Great piece!

I’ve been watching both shows and following the limited information being released. So far they are doing well on Hulu and iTunes (in the top 5 for Monday).

PP and the actors/actresses from both shows have been connecting for months with fans on Facebook and Twitter, which was a smart move to connect with younger demographic that they want.

I can’t wait to see what happens next week. Right now AMC and OLTL fans are in the honeymoon phase with their shows (and PP). I’ve seen very little backlash, negative criticism, etc. from fans. I wonder how long it will take before we see tweets from fans threatening to stop watching AMC or OLTL because they don’t like a certain storyline or want a certain actor/actress on the show.

]]> By: Myles McNutt http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2013/04/30/all-my-commodities-valuing-the-online-soap-opera/comment-page-1/#comment-404060 Tue, 30 Apr 2013 15:37:11 +0000 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/?p=19766#comment-404060 Yeah, I would agree with this. Mind you, I did think that the outdoor “action” scenes in the OLTL pilot were a little bit rough, but not outside of what I’ve come to expect from soaps more generally. In addition, if you have people who are used to watching web video and who choose to watch for free on Hulu, the lack of HD streaming would also be an equalizer of sorts.

And while Elana’s right that they’re hoping to draw in new viewers with edgier storylines—a lot of the press is about the swearing—I don’t know if they see it as a competitor—or companion—for high-production serials so much as for other primetime soaps that sit somewhere in between. The shows’ launch coincided with the Monday morning release of episodes of shows like Once Upon a Time and Revenge, and I would think those are the kind of viewers they would be actively courting to take up a daily habit to go along with their weekly ones.

]]> By: Myles McNutt http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2013/04/30/all-my-commodities-valuing-the-online-soap-opera/comment-page-1/#comment-404059 Tue, 30 Apr 2013 15:33:49 +0000 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/?p=19766#comment-404059 Thanks for your comment, Elana. I was encouraged by Abigail de Kosnik being cited in Stelter’s NYT piece, as her tie back to the early days of television does a lot to reassert the value of Soaps. It just seems like no one is following through on analyzing that history, choosing instead to sort of absently suggest “Soaps are a part of TV history” while mostly looking forward. I understand the impulse, but Prospect Park’s actual strategies are not quite as forward-looking as some of the press suggests: yes, this is a big experiment in online distribution, but it’s also a very specific one. As happy as I am that they’re taking it seriously despite being about soaps, that they’re not taking it as distinct to soap opera viewing is eliding important parts of the discourse.

]]> By: Elana Levine http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2013/04/30/all-my-commodities-valuing-the-online-soap-opera/comment-page-1/#comment-404058 Tue, 30 Apr 2013 15:22:13 +0000 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/?p=19766#comment-404058 Cynthia, I’m not sure there is such a drastic difference in production values anymore. Digital video has really blurred the line between the looks of video and film. Surely long time soap viewers will not be bothered by the production values, which look to me as “good” as broadcast soaps. And if the shows do attract new viewers who are more used to online viewing these are surely people who see many of the very low budget/production value pieces made for the web and have also been acclimated to the sometimes inconsistent quality of streaming video in general. AMC and OLTL look way more professional than your average YouTube vid.

]]> By: Cynthia B. Meyers http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2013/04/30/all-my-commodities-valuing-the-online-soap-opera/comment-page-1/#comment-404057 Tue, 30 Apr 2013 15:15:29 +0000 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/?p=19766#comment-404057 Myles, thanks for really interesting points about serials and digital distribution! I wonder if audiences will continue to accept the low budget production values (multicam, live-on-tape, etc.) in return for the daily episode? In linear TV, the daily episodes were possible only because of cheap production values. But now that we can also watch high-production-value serials in nonlinear environments (e.g. Breaking Bad on Netflix), do you think nonlinearity could shape audiences’ aesthetic expectations? and so affect audience size for these soaps?

]]> By: Elana Levine http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2013/04/30/all-my-commodities-valuing-the-online-soap-opera/comment-page-1/#comment-404056 Tue, 30 Apr 2013 15:06:03 +0000 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/?p=19766#comment-404056 Thanks for this, Myles. I have been overwhelmed by the popular press discourse on this this week. There is definitely an effort to refigure these shows as something “other” than soap opera in hopes of reaching that audience of young people who, the rhetoric goes, already watch their TV online. Yet PP recognizes that they can’t give up the continuing viewers, so they are trying to find ways to explain accessing the show to them. In so doing, it really replicates the sense of “old” soap viewers as aging, outdated, traditionally feminized. The publicity is much more focused on what is new here than on continuing a TV legacy.

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