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Passions Discussion Group
In a message posted on soapcentral.com's message boards, a claim was made that Passions star Tracey Ross (Eve Russell) directed a webmaster of a fan site to post a message stating that the cast and crew of Passions had been given notice that the show would be ending.
Later, actress Liza Huber (Gwen Hotchkiss) posted a message on her official web site with the same unfortunate news.
"Yes, it is true that Passions will finish taping at the end of March 2008," Huber said. "We will start airing 3 days a week on DirecTV which should last through summer of 2008. It has been a wonderful ride (although Gwen has completely lost her mind!) and I want to thank all of you for your amazing support for Passions through the years!"
"This rumor is indeed true at this point. Passions is scheduled to stop shooting March 2008," added Eric Martsolf (Ethan Winthrop).
While Passions is currently DirecTV's highest-rated original program, insiders say that the satellite television provider failed to meet the projected total of new subscribers expected to sign up for DirecTV in order to see Passions after it left broadcast television.
NBC canceled Passions in January 2007 to make way for a fourth hour of its morning news show, Today, but left open the possibility that the supernatural soap could find new life on another network. Before the show ultimately landed on DirecTV, it is widely believed that NBC shopped the show to the Disney-owned all-soaps cable channel, SOAPnet, along with several other cable networks. Passions' low-ratings and high production costs were the reasons cited by NBC for ditching the eight-year-old soap. Ironically, those very reasons are believed to be the rationale for other networks not wanting to pick up the rights to broadcast Passions.
Reruns of Passions aired briefly on The Sci-Fi Channel in 2006, but were quickly stopped due to low ratings.
The cast and crew of Passions will tape its final episodes of the year on December 19th before taking a Christmas-New Year's break. The show will resume taping in 2008 with the final episode being taped on or around March 24th, 2008.
New episodes of Passions will air through the summer, which would fulfill DirecTV's one-year commitment to the show.
As the news of Passions rumored cancellation made their rounds on the Internet, some fans threatened legal action against DirecTV.
"I think they knew that they were going to cancel Passions all along," said one poster on soapcentral.com's Passions forum. "They just wanted to increase their subscriber base."
It appears unlikely that Passions will move to another network.
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What gets me is, you'd think the DirecTV folks would've learned NOT to let such information out so far in advance based on what happened at NBC and Days of Our Lives .. basically saying they were looking at getting out of the daytime drama biz and probably cancelling DOOL in 2009. Like who's gonna get involved watching a soap opera knowing that it's going to be cancelled? Days started a huge drop in the ratings right after that.
I can't afford DirectTV, but if I could, this news certainly wouldn't make me want to get it now because of Passions.
I'd say - NEXT STOP - look for Passions, the animated cartoon series, appearing on Saturday morning TV. .. lol! (And if they can't afford animators, look for stick puppets!)
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I hope NBC takes another look at their lineup and finds a spot for it.
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