Daytime Soap Passions Canceled

The news was final. NBC entertainment president Kevin Reilly announced in January at the NATPE convention that the daytime soap opera, Passions, will end its eight-year run on the network in favor of extending the daily morning franchise The Today Show to an additional fourth hour of programming. Production for Passions is set to complete during this summer, while the four-hour run of The Today Show will begin next fall. President of NBC Universal, Jeff Zucker, also stunned soap fans when he announced that NBC won't likely renew the soap Days of Our Lives when the network's current contractual agreement with the program runs out in 2009. The news of Passions' cancellation and the possible future cancellation of Days sent shockwaves throughout the Internet soap community. The future of daytime soaps are now on the line, with many fans wondering whether the genre is on its last legs. When NBC announced the cancellation, it offered a sliver of hope to Passions' fans that the show might find its way to the ABC cable network SOAPnet or that it could end up on the Internet, but no news about Passions' ultimate future has been forthcoming. Whatever the case, Passions' cancellation does bode unsettling news for soap fans.