Soap Opera Fans: Are we seeing the Writer's Strike affect our soaps yet? If not, why not?

You've seen how so many talk shows with comedy writers behind the scenes are now running re-runs because they have no new material with the writers on strike. Other programs are doing the same. But soap operas aren't airing re-runs yet, or at least to my knowledge. For them, this would be disasterous given that the whole foundation of soaps is to tune in each day to see what has happened in the day-to-day ongoing drama of these soap stars on-camera lives.

I heard, however, that the writers for soaps are on strike too. Is that accurate? Have the soaps just taped so far in advance that they still have a stockpile of episodes they are working through before they have to do something different, go dark, or perhaps air re-runs? What has made soaps thus far seemingly indelible to the writer's strike, at least from the viewers' perceptions?

Soaps are NOT taped 6 months in advance. You are right about the writers on soaps being on strike too. Soaps tape 6-8 weeks in advance and the writing is done maybe a month or two in advance. However, if the strike continues much longer, soaps (ABC soaps) are considering showing re-runs - like Luke & Laura wedding, AMC - last Christmas show - the Christmas miracle - etc.

yes soap operas tape their shows months ahead. i am not sure how hare but It will be affecting our show pretty soon I think.

I hope they solve the matters soon, so that we don't have to go to long with reruns or nothing at all.

it looks as if they're filling parts of the soaps w/ flashbacks to stretch out the material

according to a magazine I have read (Soap Opera Digest) the strike won't affect ABC soaps yet. They are written into the new year.

Because soaps air on a daily, rather than weekly, basis, they tape farther in advance than primetime shows. When the last writer's strike occurred, back in 1988, the soaps hired "scab" writers, which didn't work out too well. On my fav soap, AMC, the scab writers killed off the Jesse Hubbard character (one of then show's most popular), and when the *real* writers came back they were p*****d because they had a long-term storyline planned for him. Either way, we - the viewers - are the biggest losers in this instance.

The only reason we're not seeing it yet is that most soaps are taped 6 weeks in advance.

When rumors of a writer's strike start circulating, the networks tend to try to "space out" what stories they have by doing a lot of flashback scenes. I know that seeing the same thing we saw yesterday as part of today's show is annoying, but it's better than no soap at all.

They are. They've shown reruns of OLTL. It seems to me that they've hired writers who are not going to strike, and who are less experienced. OLTL is going slow, which, in my opinion is not the norm for that show.

the shows are taped months in advance. At leat 6 months. If they show e-runs, i will be so devestated. It's not that i don't have anything better to do with my time, but i love to watch them on my day off. If i wanna watch re-runs, then i'll watch soap net. Well, i look at it lke this, i watch channel 2, they will be losing their ratings and alot of money, and their soap stars will get sick of it and look for more work. Have a great day!

I hope it is because of the strike, if not CBS Soaps really need to get some new writers FAST. They all are becoming so outrageous that I tape them and now I only have to set for about an hour and a half to watch all of them. By the time I fast forward through Commercials and boring parts that is all the time it take. I have to say though sometimes the Commercials are more interesting.