There aren’t many soaps left on the air, four to be exact, and now news has arrived that leads one to believe that it could be soon cut down to three. It has been announced that the entire cast of NBC’s daytime soap, Days of Our Lives, has been released from their contracts.
Let me clarify: NBC has not announced the longtime running soap has been canceled. The show will go an indefinite hiatus at the end of the month and this is more of a cost-cutting move during the usual renewal window between NBC and Days distributor Sony Pictures TV. A renewal for Days typically comes at the start of the year and negotiations for another season are underway. That being said, the company is limiting its exposure in case the series is not renewed for another season while also employing a possible negotiating tactic with the cast.
The upside for Days is that the soap apparently shoots so far in advance that they have episodes on deck until at least the summer of 2020. The show recently employed a story-dictated one year time jump as well so Days won’t be going anywhere anytime soon on the air. The hope is that releasing the cast from their contracts and coming back to the table for negotiations will put pressure on actors to accept terms dictated by producers. Re-casting is a common practice in daytime so if longtime performers on the show don’t accept new terms after the renewal, the producers could recast with actors who are willing to take lower wages.
Days of Our Lives is currently in its 55th season and the news of the contract releases come after years of the genre being relatively stable after a big wave of cancellations cost fans to lose All My Children & One Life to Live. There are now only four soaps remaining on television which includes Days Of Our Lives on NBC, General Hospital on ABC and Young and the Restless and Bold and the Beautiful on CBS.
