Prospect Park Networks — the production company that launched with high hopes of bringing two canceled ABC soap operas back to life — has put itself on legal life support. The production firm based in Century City, Calif., headed by veteran producers Jeff Kwatinetz and Rich Frank, said Monday that it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Producers behind the revived All My Children and One Life to Live hoped to buy ad time during broadcast soaps, but CBS and NBC refused to help tout the competition and ABC has since filed a lawsuit over one spot.
Exclusives
After being canceled by ABC in 2011, All My Children will be back starting Monday with much of its august cast intact, but this time it will be online. Joining AMC the same day will be One Life to Live, another venerable soap cut down by ABC after 44 seasons. Each serial will unveil four daily half-hours per week, plus a recap/behind-the-scenes episode on Fridays, with 42 weeks of original programming promised for the first year.
ABC responded to the lawsuit filed last week by studio Prospect Park seeking $25 million in damages — which alleged the network maliciously killed three One Life to Live characters to sabotage its online resurrection of the show — terming the legal action “baseless.”
One week before Prospect Park is set to launch online soaps All My Children and One Life to Live, the production company is filing a breach of contract lawsuit against ABC, which licensed the shows to Prospect Park, the company of Jeff Kwatinetz and former Walt Disney studios president Rich Frank, two years ago. In the complaint, which has been filed with the Los Angeles Superior Court, Prospect Park claims that ABC has been breaking the licensing agreement and sabotaging Prospect Park’s efforts to continue on AMC and OLTL online.
NEW YORK (AP) — It’s not uncommon for soap opera characters thought dead to spring back to life. Now, a pair of soap operas thought dead are being resurrected. Venerable […]
Prospect Park, the production company that failed to bring canceled ABC soaps All My Children and One Life to Live online last year, has secured a deal with SAG-AFTRA that could see the veteran series making new episodes in 2013.
Prospect Park, the company, which in July signed a licensing deal with ABC to keep canceled daytime dramas One Life To Live and All My Children in production for online distribution, will not proceed with its plans for an online soap network anchored by the two shows.
ABC’s canceled daytime dramas All My Children and One Life to Live may be returning to television. Prospect Park, the company that licensed the soaps from ABC and plans to relaunch them online in the first quarter of 2012, is meeting with cable networks — both big-tent, general entertainment networks and female-centered nets — about TV sales of the two series and is getting interest.
All My Children and One Life to Live will live on — on the Web.Disney’s ABC has sold the online rights to the two long-running soaps, which are scheduled to go off the air in September, as part of a deal with TV, film and music company Prospect Park, sources say.
