Plans to bring the canceled ABC soap operas All My Children and One Life to Live to the Internet remain in limbo as the producers struggle to find enough financial backers who believe that such a scheme can produce a profit, according to Peter Kafka, the All Things D online columnist for the Wall Street Journal. Taking an established television show and transporting it to the Internet has never been done before -- principally because online advertising does not produce anything close to the revenue that television advertising does. As Kafka points out, while the $160,000-per-episode budget for each of the soaps may be regarded as "outrageously cheap for TV" it is "fantastically expensive for the Web." And Jeff Kwatinetz, whose Prospect Park production company is trying to transition the two soaps to the web, has apparently been unable to convince cast and crew -- or perhaps their unions -- to take a cut in pay. Kafka suggests that Kwatinetz is resigned to paying them same amount if he moves the shows online. Nevertheless, he maintains that he can make a profit on them if only 10 percent of the shows' 2.5 million regular TV viewers watch them online.

04/11/2011