Could strong ratings save One Life to Live?

There may yet be hope for fans of One Life to Live, the cancelled ABC soap, as the soap see’s its ratings rise.

When ABC announced it was cancelling One Life to Live and All My Children earlier this year the broadcaster cited low ratings as part of the reason. One Life to Live had been dogged by cancellation rumours for several years and ABC had denied its impending axe several times. However, since news of the cancellation of both soaps ratings for One Life to Live have actually risen and an examination of ratings for three weeks of June reveal it is the broadcasters top-rated soap.

Ratings for the first week of June reveal OLTL had an average of 2.5 million viewers and was the only soap for that week to be up against last year. By comparison fellow axed soap All My Children had 2.3 million viewers while General Hospital (which hasn’t been axed yet) had 2.2 million viewers making it the least watched soap of that week. Figures for the second week of June reveal that once again OLTL was up against last year and was still ABC’s top-rated soap with 2.5 million viewers compared with 2.3 million for AMC and 2.2 million for GH which was once again the least watched soap of the week. And figures for the 3rd week once again show that OLTL was up against last year and had 2.5 million viewers while AMC had 2.3 million while GH saw a slight improvement with 2.3 million as well.

Those figures are just for the first three weeks of June but they offer insight into how OLTL has been steadily improving its ratings performance for some time now. Given the fact its now ABC’s top-rated soap, despite its cancellation, does offer fans hope for its future especially given General Hospital’s recent poor performance which may make it a bit more venerable. Networks are notoriously shy of changing their minds especially when cancellations are concerned but rumour has it that ABC is considering just that – that’s just rumour though.

According to some reports ABC is looking to see how AMC’s replacement (The Chew) performs when it launches in September. If it the new lifestyle programme doesn’t perform well some reports claim that ABC will keep OLTL on – it isn’t due to end until January so that gives ABC some time after the finale of AMC to change its mind. Now fans shouldn’t get their hopes up too high but there is a glimmer of hope. Where that would leave General Hospital – which already faces an uncertain future – is anyone’s guess.