Other titles include "As the Web Turns," "Chiphead Harry," "Knots Landing Reborn," "Austin" - and dozens more. Nevertheless, the Web is co-opting the spy-on-their-lives format we've known on daytime dramas such as NBC's "Sunset Beach," MTV's reality soap "Real World" and Fox's canceled "Melrose Place."Įarly Web soap "The Spot" - no longer alive, although you can still check out - chronicled the lives of young buds in a Santa Monica beach house. Dialogue is often kitschy-dumb, audio is noisy and video-streaming abominably slow. Granted, quality is an elusive quotient among the fictional programs called Web soaps, Web serials or episodic dramas. If the soaps are allegedly losing their luster on broadcast, they're glowing - albeit erratically - on the Net. The soap genre is gaining ground in cyberspace - in a weirdly wired, unruly, Web-worthy kinda way. "They are easy to sell to advertisers because they deliver the purest (easy to define and target) audience: women 18-49."Īnd check the World Wide Web. "Soaps are something people believe the networks do exclusively well," said Susan Lee, senior vice president, NBC entertainment, daytime programs. It could have opted for a talk show or game show or dipped into the even-hotter how-to genre, a la Martha Stewart. The genre, they say, is gutted by sinking ratings, shrinking revenues and viewer flight to cable and the Internet.īut NBC has replaced "World" with the frothy "Passions," which debuted July 5. Industry-watchers are crying that daytime soaps are dying, as "Another World" recently did. Or maybe viewers are seeking better suds in other tubs. Sexy soak - or soap on a rope? Right now the future of daytime drama seems murky as muddy bath water.