Erika Slezak on AMC and OLTL Getting Axed: "ABC Has Let So Many People Down By Cancelling These Two Shows"
Erika Slezak never shies away from voicing her opinions on the state of daytime and One Life To Live. In an interview with Smashing Interviews Magazine, the legendary actress discusses her take on why Prospect Park's deal to resurrect All My Children and OLTL collapsed. She also shares how she feels about The Chew and The Revolution.
Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): What is your opinion about how Prospect Park has handled things so far?
Erika Slezak: I think they had all good intentions. I think they really wanted this to work. But, and how do I phrase this, they’re Hollywood people. In Hollywood, things are done quite differently. You get your actors, your script, director and producer together, and then you get the money. In daytime, you have to have all the money up front (laughs). I think that was their difficulty.
They really did not have any idea of the scope of the work that is required to put a daytime show on. But, I think that their intentions were wonderful, and I was so excited when they said they wanted to do this because I thought, “This would be wonderful to open up a whole new medium for original programming.” It has worked for so many people and has been entertainment for so many people.
When I started on One Life to Live, we had four channels – ABC, NBC, CBS, and Channel 13, and then FOX came along. All of a sudden, cable came along, and now the choices are so enormous that to add the Internet to that makes it even better. So, I think their intentions were really good, and I’m very sorry it didn’t work because the loss of jobs is just horrendous.
I’m not too pleased with ABC. ABC has let so many people down by cancelling these two shows. It’s all about money. I understand that. But, how much money are they going to make with The Chew and The Revolution? I don’t know if anybody is watching The Chew. The problem is they’re all trying to be television personalities. They scream and laugh and they talk over each other, and it makes it impossible to watch. I’ve said this to one of their producers. I asked, “Can’t they just speak one at a time?” He said, “No, no, no, they can’t do that. They have to show enthusiasm.” But, you can’t understand them and you can’t hear them.
The reason that ABC … when I spoke to Brian Frons, he said, “People don’t want entertainment anymore. They want information.” I disagree with that. I think there’s plenty of information out there to be gotten. If you want it, you can find it anywhere, but entertainment is something different, and there are people who have spent their lives sitting down for an hour in the middle of the afternoon when the babies were little or when they’ve just had lunch, and they’ve watched entertainment. They don’t want to watch a cooking show.
Sister Slezak, keep on testifying the gospel! To find out Slezak's thoughts on if the shows will ever return and what's going on with PP now, click here.
