W to drop General Hospital
It's been a bad week for General Hospital. Aussie actor Ingo Rademacher is fired after 10 years and Foxtel will pull the plug in June.
- Published by David Knox
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Long-running US soap General Hospital will vanish from Australian screens once again when it ends its run on the W channel on Friday, June 17.
From June 20, W has scheduled Canadian crime series The Border at 12.50pm weekdays, although the series ended in August.
Foxtel advises it has been screening the show since last July but its audience has not been building, despite having The Young and the Restless as its lead-in in the weekday afternoon schedule.
In a statement, Foxtel says, “Prior to its return in 2010, General Hospital had been off air in Australia for several years and during this time the show’s storylines were shifting away from the hospital base to focus more on the drama and intrigue of its crime families.
“Over the past year, W has also aired the show in additional timeslots to provide opportunities for sampling the program but viewers have not engaged with the series with anywhere near the same enthusiasm as they have for the channel’s other dramas.”
Meanwhile after more than 10 years, Australian actor Ingo Rademacher was let go from the soap ealier this week. He told ABC Soaps in Depth: “Yes, I know that’s sounds bad but sometimes little birds need a shove out of the nest to find their wings… better late then never? I’m trying to find some humor in all this. Even though this was not my call, I think my GH days were almost up anyway…. I would like to thank everyone at GH, the producers, directors, crew, my fellow actors and ABC/Disney for making my 15 years enjoyable and fun. It was always a great place for me to work and I will have fantastic memories. I would again like to thank my fans and especially my ‘Jax Angels’ who have been there for me, supporting me in every way, from Day One. Thank you!”
After ABC cancelled All My Children and One Life to Live, General Hospital will become its only daytime soap from January.
The Young and the Restless remains at 12pm weekdays on W.
56 Responses
To Billy,
I want Days to leave Channel 9 and come to W, cause Days has more staying power than General Hospital ever did and can fill its old timeslot of 12:50pm weekdays perfectly and so that 9 can be able to do their cricket and sports broadcasts in the future without having to worry about how far behind Days is to the episodes currently airing in the States and besides it’ll be great having that show air alongside The Young and the Restless weekdays from Noon!
To Paul , Do you want Days to leave Channel 9 and come to W ?
Tammy, Carol, Paul and Lyn please join the Return GH Immediately!! facebook group !!!
Carol please get all your friends to join as well and join the discussion at the W channel message board. People are going ballistic there.
W & Foxtel,
when you drop General Hospital, they are other daytime dramas such as Days of Our Lives that you can use to fill the 12:50pm weekdays timeslot with! Besides since The Border Series 3 already airs Tuesdays at 10pm anyway, is there any need to have it air weekdays at 12:50pm,hence what I’m asking here is can you air other daytime dramas in General Hospital’s old timeslot of 12:50pm weekdays (that have staying power), such as Days of Our Lives so that W can still air a Daytime Drama Double weekdays from Noon?
Foxtel !!!Where do u get your rating numbers from ? Ever since General Hospital has come back onto foxtel (W) I have not missed one days viewing of my favorite soap it is so much better then other soaps as the families are all still on the show and the story lines are excellent – my friends and I had a special party for Sonny & Brenda wedding
Please do not put on any re-runs in it’s place – if u do W is another channel on Foxtel I will not be watching
Why do Foxtel rely on ratings? We pay for a service and for this fee I want dedication to shows otherwise I would watch free to air. I mean jeez these days you can never get into a show with out the fear of them axing it. What the hell! How about choosing shows and sticking with them. I don’t know one person or one person who knows a person who even knows a person with one of these elusive ratings boxes but I know lots of people who watch it. Don’ t do this again or I will cancel my subscription again just like last time you axed GH.
Is there any other daytime drama that W can air when it drops General Hospital in the 12:50pm weekdays timeslot, such as Days of Our Lives? Besides The Border Series 3 already airs Tuesdays at 10pm on W, so is there any need to have it air weekdays at 12:50pm?
Lyn …. Make sure you complain to Foxtel and W and Loudly!!!!!
Here we go again 🙁
Not Happy Jan!!!
A.A. ……. Yes compalin to Foxtel ASAP. We need as many people to complain as possible.
Steve…. have you ever actually watched the show? how do you know it is silly? Do you really want TV to move in a direction that all scripted televsion disappears in favor of cheap reality shows taht emply a lot less people??
both Y and R and GH have never made the top 100 . Yes there are stronger ratings for Y and R . just like in America but Foxtel doesn’t let you know ratings past the 100th show but there are many shows staying on air that don’t get into top 100.
Was Y&R rating better than GH-no wonder why GH is disappearing. Have we heard of any interest by the FTA multuchannels about picking it up?
Thanks W you have lost another viewer
as I’m not going to watch repeats of old
cancelled shows. Just keep GH. And I will watch
W again. Maybe not everyone who watched
y&r are fans of GH and maybe GH fans
are not fans of Y&R.
Thank goodness.
Does this mean i won’t be subjected to countless ads for this silly soap when i’m watching The View marathon on Sunday mornings?
it’s available online to watch online-but on US sites that are geo-blocked in Australia. Maybe we should all be requestihg other channels to pick up GH or sending feedback to Foxtel.
Perhaps another Foxtel channel could pick it up or a FTA one (a 7 multichannel aired All My Children but then dropped it too like what W’s doing with GH).
and 24 , Most Haunted , Friday Night Lights .
that W channel is quickly becoming less and less and useful. They are basically mostly all axed prime time dramas now. The Unit , Without A Trace , The Closer , Cold Case , The Border , Law and Order . The land of axed shows…
GH has been more “General” than “Hospital” for about 31 years now….
What a ridiculous thing for W to say …
So back to three US soaps, Y&R on W, B&B on Ten and DOOL on Nine. I wonder which will happen first – one of them is dropped by an Aussie network or one is cancelled by a US network?
Um in 2004 they had a commercial saying it is less Hospital and more General and in that statement they are saying it like it a recent thing , they just put anything they could think of , it was a poor job of writing a statement. and The W channel has sister channels and can arrange someone else to take it like they have with several shows. Its a very poorly written statement and I can tell its not genuine , just made up as they went along.
Would this show be of any interest to 7TWO, GO, GEM or Eleven?
Canadian Crime Drama that was axed in January 2010 and has already screened in prime time and Foxtel and their reruns rear their ugly head yet again !! I would avoid the lead in and watch just the main attraction , I dont care what screens as the lead in !!
Why did they even bother bringing it back if they were only going to give it 10 months?
A very cruel thing to do to the fans considering they pay so much for the service.
I would suggest calling Foxtel or Austar Customer Service to complain.
I am noticing Foxtel is removing more and more original programming and just going with reruns of shows they have already screened several times. Not a good trend at all….
I knew this would happen, Foxtel have never committed long-term to GH. They suck! I honestly don’t buy this rating excuse they trot out everytime they want to cancel GH, is it really that important for a show to be rating fantastically at 12.50pm?? It’s hardly primetime viewing.
when will networks Ever learn that having a top rating show as a lead in means absolutely nothing- nothing!!! Do they think we’re not going to get up and switch the channel or simply press another button on the remote to watch what we want… assuming this (and they do and have for a long time) is ludicrous