What an informative interview! I was especially intrigued by the idea of expanding the soaps to Podcasts or making past episodes available via Internet downloads or DVD's. I think this is a fabulous idea, but I know of at least one glitch that could throw a monkey wrench into showing old episodes of soaps.

When ABC began re-airing old spisodes of Ryan's Hope on SoapNet, they ran into licensing problems with the music. ABC did not own the liscense to re-air any of the music in episodes from 1982 or so onward; that's why they aired an episode from 1981 on a Friday and started over the following Monday with the first episode from 1975.

They'd also have to come up with revenue to pay the actors residuals for those episodes. Every time an eposode is broadcast, every actor in that episode gets paid a small residual. Ilene Kristen and Ron Hale are still getting residuals from Ryan's Hope reruns even though those episodes aired 30 years ago! Surely these costs would be offset by the money TPTB would make in selling these shows, though.

If they could work problems like this out though, I think they'd have a virtual goldmine in revenue by making old episodes available to fans. Some may argue that they're already available on YouTube for free, but the quality is often poor and the videos are broken up into small segments.

I would think it would only enhance the viewing of current fans, and may even draw in some new ones if they made old episodes available. For example, say you've just begun watching OLTL and want to understand why Todd hates Cole and Marty. Wouldn't it be handy to be able to go online and see the Marty/Todd rape episodes, just like you'd download a primetime episode of Ugly Betty? As w/ UB, they could still put some ads in, but it would be nice to see network-quality footage all in one place.

I also like the idea of internet "extras"; short podcasts like Imaginary Bitches that would enhance the viewing experience. GH's Alice could do "A Day with the Q's" or AMC's Colby could do a college video project interning w/ Brooke English at Tempo. So many possibilities!

One other quick comment re: the soap press. Someone noted that today's soap press treats the stars like the movie mags did back in the 1940's and '50's. No one knew how messed up Marilyn Monroe was until after her death b/c it was taboo to report on the actor's private lives. Personally, I wish the mainstream press was a bit more like soap press. Do we really need to know about all Britney Spears' meltdowns? I don't care what a soap actor is doing in their private llife as long as it doesn't affect their performance on the show. JMO.

I just listened to this episode and it was fantastic!! Michael Fairman is so interesting and is a great soap advocate! I'm definitely going to check out his site.

I love these interviews. Thanks guys, for "introducing" us to these fascinating people who I might never have heard of otherwise (Sam Ford, Tom C, Mimi Torchin and now Michael F)!