US Daytime soap is back in the UK via an exclusive UK channel on youtube. I know posted on the 'B&B' thread which is ancient so worth it's own headline for big news!

Starts from when the 'new' Ridge Forrester came in, late in 2013. I have mixed views on this. Rather it started where Diva TV left it.


The YT channel

Agreed it should have picked up where diva tv left off. We could have a good few years of stephanie and jackie that way.

Pleased that B&B have pulled their finger out and done something for those of us in the uk that do follow the show

I can see why you guys would want the show to pick up where DivaTV left off, but I can see why they didn't do that. I think being that far behind may have hindered the process.

For old fans who may have lost their way with the direction the show took from the mid-2000s, 2014 is a good year to pick things up from, b/c it's the year the show starts to feel like its old self again; very much like the golden era of the 90s.

I hope this works out, and people tune in. I'm looking forward to the BTS stuff that they'll produce for the UK.

I know SORASING is used in the US more but just feel horribly hating towards likes of Hope and Alexandria turning up after being 5 only few short years ago. Another reason i'm reluctant to jump into watching B&B again.

You've got to try and leave all that at the door. It's not something I really thought about, but I can see how it may grate on some. I guess if it bothers you that much, you won't watch b/c you won't like seeing adult Hope and Aly on the show, but I do feel you'll be missing out on a lot of great stuff.

Watching the show again after such a long absence, the one thing that is glaring about 2014 is the absence of Stephanie. No character replaces her, so her role in the show has left a hole.

Just out of curiosity what US soaps have aired in England?

Outside of B&B...

Sunset Beach: Channel 5
Days of our Lives: Channel 5/Sky Soap
General Hospital: ABC1
Santa Barbara: ITV
Another World, As The World Turns, Guiding Light, The Young and the Restless, Payton's Place: Sky Soap in the 90s.
Knots Landing, Melrose Place, Dynasty and Dallas all had UK runs originally.

In addition to those mentioned by Deschanel, we also had Search for Tomorrow and Edge of Night on the old Lifestyle channel on Sky back in the 90's.

thanks. SO ABC has a channel in England and they only showed GH? They never showed their other soaps like All My Children, One Life to Live, Loving and Ryan's Hope

It is a bit 'hard' to just forgot about the past, like they want you to do when they try in a narrow minded way to fast track character ages. will give it a stab.

I suppose the 'evil' character which Stephanie at times portrayed you'd pin on Quinn now I guess.

They had a channel, which no longer exists due to money. It does seem odd that they only chose to air GH, but I guess they were testing the waters. It was ABC1's most popular show, which they ended up dumping due to budget; soon after, the channel closed.


I do understand how hard it can be to forget about the history that they want you to dismiss, but I feel if you love the show, you'll find a way to make it make sense for you.

Quinn is more like Sheila Carter. No where near Stephanie levels at all.

ABC1 was a pretty short lived digital channel that mostly showed new and classic sitcoms. It's lineup wasn't the same as ABC in the US. It was more of just a mish mash of ABC sitcoms shown on repeat in a similar vein to say Comedy Central. There were some dramas shown but it was mostly comedy. The channel only lasted three years and they only showed GH for part of that time.

Ok thanks, I just looked it up on Wikipeidia and its no wonder that channel failed, most of the shows they were airing were short lived sitcoms. Had they been airing some of ABC's popular shows of that time like Grey's Anatomy, Ugly Betty and Desperate Housewives that channel would have been a hit.

Like Deschanel said, they might have just been testing the waters and we may have gotten bigger shows as time went on. They probably made more money off of Desperate Housewives and Grey's by selling them to other UK channels rather than airing them on ABC1. We currently have CBS and FOX branded channels in the UK but their lineups are very different from CBS and FOX in the US.

It's always a weird thing when random channels like that launch, given that the majority of their content has already been sold to other networks. They don't seem to launch with much of budget, either. At the time, DH and Ugly Betty were airing on C4/E4, so the terrestrial and digital rights were tied up, while Grey's is with Sky.

I know what you mean, but it just seems like not much thought went into it. Comedies are cheaper, and are less likely to be airing on other channels. What they should have done was reach into the archives and air a couple of popular defunct dramas that no-one else was airing. But, if they couldn't afford GH for more than 2 years, then they probably couldn't afford much.

CBS has gotten it kinda right by airing a good selection of old shows, while Fox has the advantage of obtaining the first run satellite rights to popular shows, like The Walking Dead (its also an established channel).

Ok, I got ya, its like we have BBC America but they don't show East Enders. I find it hard to believe that ABC1 didn't have money as its part of Disney's empire, Disney's bent on media domination so I would think they would want a successful network in England as well....then again maybe they plan on doing what they did with ABC and buy an established British network.

I just watched todays two episodes, for someone who hasn't seen all that much since DivaTV (the odd ep here and there) it was very easy to follow actually. Whilst I would love to see a bit more of Stephanie and Jackie, I can see why this is a good place to restart the series.

I wonder how they will promote it?

Good question. I wonder if they would be allowed to produce TV promos, like how Netflix and Amazon Prime promote their shows? Otherwise, no-one will know about it.

Looking at the view counts, you can see why B&B struggled to find an audience on UK TV.

For how long will they bother doing this if the numbers don't pick up? It looks like a fair amount of effort is going into the running of this channel.

My wife is desperate for them to do this for The Young and the Restless

To be fair a lot of people don't know about it. I only knew because of a group I am on on Facebook. It was a complete surprise, no build up or anticipating the first air date or anything.

Hopefully more of the fans will start to know.

On diva it used to get 12k viewers, making it their most popular show. Hopefully more of those fans will learn that they can see it again

I wouldn't even let my worst enemy be subjected to these awful soaps. Because i was raised in the US and go back there a lot, I've seen all the american soaps and they are simply dreadful. The writing and the acting is atrocious. I am so grateful that the UK Soaps are nothing at all like the US ones. I mean their are discussions about how crap corrie is at the moment and who is the worst actor one each soap, but i think we are lucky our soaps are nothing like these ones.

I think that's a little unfair. Sure, some US soaps feel like half the cast are awful, but with B&B, I actually think they have a pretty solid cast acting wise.

I don't understand how anyone can watch B&B and say Jacob Young, Katherine Kelly Lang, Heather Tom, Ashleigh Brewer or Rena Sofer are bad actors.

Zone Romantica used to show Y&R and DOOL aswell back in 2007 with another soap but I can't remember which one! It's now CBS Drama.

That was Guiding Light