Lunch at Michael's with ABC Daytime Chief Brian Frons
"We can bring fans into the characters' lives 24/7 on the Internet. What if you could watch Monday's episode of a soap on Friday afternoon?"
Here's a trivia question: What's the biggest event of the year at Disney World? Here's another: What's the
fastest growing new program in daytime television?
The answer to the first question is this weekend's Super Soap Weekend, when up to 35,000 soap fans will crowd into the theme park daily to meet and greet the stars of ABC soap operas General Hospital, One Life to Live and All My Children plus the stars of
the correct answer to question #2: ABC morning talker The View. While The View is technically not a new show, its ratings are up 21 percent this year with the addition of Rosie O'Donnell.
ABC Daytime and SOAPnet president Brian Frons claims "The View is an entirely new show with Rosie. Barbara Walters promised that Rosie would offer strong opinions,
humor and intelligence, and she would bring in a new audience without alienating loyal viewers. She's done that."
Ed Martin, Brian Frons & Jack Myers at Michael's
Brian is especially proud of the way Rosie and Elisabeth Hasselbeck have bonded on The View. While they have many contrary and opposing views, "Rosie and Elisabeth have come together over being Moms," Brian confides. "Elisabeth has come into her own and Rosie hears and
responds to Elisabeth's point of view. It's an important message that people with different points of view can listen to each other. They can be on different sides on issues but still have humanity toward each other."
Brian, who met with MediaVillage.com editor Ed Martin and me for Lunch at Michael's™, is a huge Rosie fan and an outspoken promoter of the continued vitality and importance of daytime soap operas. While Brian and I mourned the early departure of the Yankees from the
post-season (Brian and his 12-year old son bond over ESPN and the Yankees), Brian and Ed discussed their mutual passion for soaps and their long tradition.
Just as baseball fans can remember players, stats and specific games from decades ago, "soap fans absorb details and can retain story lines and characters for years," Brian explained. "Following the
soaps is an emotional experience. Soaps have an emotional currency. TV shows wear out sooner when they fail to make emotional connections."
Brian believes daytime soap operas will have a unique opportunity in digital formats such as online and iPod, which are currently prevented by contractual issues. "Hopefully these issues will be
overcome in the near future," says Brian. "We can bring fans into the characters' lives 24/7 on the Internet. What if you could watch Monday's episode of a soap on Friday afternoon? What if you could watch the big scenes from General Hospital's Jason and Sam on your cell phone? Characters could live on the Internet between shows."
Jill Farren-Phelps (Executive Producer, General Hospital), Anthony Geary ("Luke" on General Hospital) and Brian Frons (President, ABC Daytime)
Photo Credit: ABC/Scott Garfield
Brian will be at this weekend's Super Soap Weekend (November 10 to 12 at Disney World), where the hottest event will be a special day devoted to Luke and Laura, the legendary couple from General Hospital portrayed by Anthony Geary and Genie Francis. Their story line
dates all the way back to 1978. Even I recall watching their wedding in 1981, knowing little of their back story but understanding that they were, by far, the hottest TV story of the year, even making the cover of Newsweek. Genie left the show several years ago, but
she recently returned for a six-week run. The appearance at Super Soap Weekend by Anthony and Genie promises to attract record crowds.
Brian joined ABC in 2002 after six years with SBS Broadcasting in England, where he developed and worked on the originals of reality series Fear Factor, Big Brother, Survivor and The Mole. "I
miss the reality world," Brian told Ed and me. "If The Bachelor wasn't already on TV I would buy it for SOAPnet," he admitted.
Plans are underway, he shared, to develop an original reality-based soap opera on SOAPnet. The series, says Brian, will begin as a once-a-week show and will expand to five-times-a-week if it works. "Daily shows need to be incubated to see if we have the casting right and to learn how
we can develop a fresh take on the genre," he explains. "Each wave of prime time soap operas brought something new, starting with Peyton Place in small town America and then the CBS soaps Dallas, Falcon Crest and Knots Landing, which were upscale and glitzy. Fox' Aaron Spelling soaps Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place were young and beautiful and now ABC's Desperate Housewives is
very funny. Ugly Betty is the most fun of all. On Grey's Anatomy doctors are healing patients and healing themselves. They are trying to deal with their own problems with lightness, irony and fun."
What's next in the genre? "I'm not sure there are any secrets waiting anywhere in the world," Brian responds. "No one knows where the next innovation in programming will come from but we
are open to new ideas." Brian is expanding SoapU (http://soapnet.go.com/specials/soapu/index.html), a student competition offering the opportunity for fans to create a $20,000 soap opera. "It's a great way to come up with new content and the next generation's Agnes Nixon." (Agnes created All My Children and
attracted young people to soaps with that program.)
Brian, who began his career at CBS and then moved to NBC, becoming head of NBC Daytime at 26, believes it's important for soaps to get real. "Soap clichés may have worked the first ten times, but now audiences know them as well as we do and know they're not real. Real
life is unpredictable. When I returned to the U.S.," he says, "I understood that people were watching authentic people in reality shows and believed people wanted soap characters to become more real."
In response ABC added more depth to All My Children's Bianca, the lesbian daughter of Susan Lucci's Erica Kane. "She was defined only by her sexuality and we began writing her character to become every woman, to make her more real and to understand what makes her
good or bad. Maggie and Bianca became the super couple of daytime. Maggie had trouble admitting she was gay and became involved with an abusive guy, and Bianca saved her from that relationship. It was very real and had not been done in daytime before."
Brian and his wife Jeanine, who met when Brian was at NBC and Jeanine was a director on the soap Santa Barbara, enjoy traveling the country with their son "falling back in love with
America and learning how values are changing. There is a big change in society," he believes. "The baby boom generation had no problem with our parents not being around. Today parents are very close to and involved with their children. It's more of a Gilmore Girls life. We
reflect that in our soaps. Laura rebelled against her mother Leslie, but now she is very close to her own children."
Brian calls Los Angeles home now, but he was born in Brooklyn, moving to Long Island when he was 12 and attending Wantagh High School. He went to Fredonia College, near Buffalo and then
moved to Newhouse School at Syracuse University for his master's degree.
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