Soap and glory

When Jason Donovan and Kylie Minogue reunited in summer 2022 as on-screen sweethearts Scott and Charlene for the grand finale of the show that launched their careers 36 years ago, most – including fellow returnees Margot Robbie and Guy Pearce – thought Neighbours was done for.

The story saw the houses on Ramsay Street –the fictional cul-de-sac in the similarly imagined Melbourne suburb of Erinsborough – put up for sale. In the real world this was because producer Fremantle had failed to find an alternative UK buyer after Paramount’s Channel 5 ended its co-financing arrangement with the show’s domestic home, Network 10.

And so the long-running Australian soap opera came to an end. Except that it didn’t. In a plot twist that vied for believability with Neighbours’ 20th anniversary plane crash episode, Amazon’s Freevee announced, out of nowhere, it had struck a deal with Fremantle to continue making the series.

Not only will Neighbours now see new episodes in 2023 but Freevee will tap into its mixed advertising videoon-demand (AVoD) and free, ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) environment to offer fans thousands of hours from the archives, spliced into a range of dedicated internetdelivered channels.

While viewers in the UK and US will be able to watch all this content for nothing through Freevee, Network 10 will retain free-to-air rights in Australia with the streamed version sat behind Amazon’s Prime Video subscription paywall there, as well as in New Zealand and Canada.

Neighbours isn’t the first soap opera to move from linear to online in recent months, with NBC in the US last summer unveiling a shift for its longest-running series, Days of Our Lives, to in-house streamer Peacock after 57 years on the broadcast network. The model is slightly different in this instance, however, in that Peacock isn’t entirely free and fans now have to pay to view new episodes on its adsupported tier.

While the move caused consternation among some, one of the series’ directors, Scott McKinsey, took to social media to suggest that Days may not have continued at all if this hadn’t happened, and the soap could have slipped into history like those cancelled by other networks.

In early 2022, Channel 4 in the UK began debuting new episodes of its 32-year-old youth-skewing soap Hollyoaks via AVoD service All 4 ahead of airing on its flagship broadcast network and sibling E4. While not as radical as the Neighbours or Days of Our Lives developments, the move highlights a growing sense that, as digitisation sweeps the industry, the world of soaps is ripe for reinvention, with FAST channels in particular opening new avenues for series with vast catalogues often simply sat on the shelf rather than being monetised.

“What soaps allow for is constant engagement with a service and so from that standpoint they’re a natural fit for AVoD,” Amazon Studios head of AVoD original content and programming Lauren Anderson told delegates at C21’s Content London in late 2022.

“When you take a show like Neighbours – but really, any show – we have the ability to put up thousands of episodes now. For those who’ve never watched, they can join and start wherever they like and choose to catch up or not. We’re going to build a number of FAST channels just for Neighbours, if you want to watch it by season or curated episodes. The ability to play inside of streaming is the thing I love, and so even though it wasn’t originally built for streaming, it’s a perfect fit and we’ll be making a lot of shows that fit within that model.”

Freevee is just one of a growing number of players in the AVoD/FAST space, alongside the likes of Paramount’s Pluto TV, Comcast’s Xumo, Fox’s Tubi, plus Roku, Samsung, LG and Vizio. And with AVoD revenues predicted to grow faster than those of subscription services in the years ahead – rising by US$52bn between 2022 and 2028 to hit US$91bn, versus SVoD climbing US$29bn to US$132bn, according to Digital TV Research – soap operas, for long the preserve of daytime, could be set for a primetime starring role in TV’s new ecosystem.

Lauren Anderson, head of AVoD original content and programming, Amazon Studios

With the power of streaming, we’re able to offer a catalogue of thousands of Neighbours episodes for new audiences to discover this legendary series and current fans to relive their favourite moments. We look forward to immersing the audience in new Ramsay Street experiences when we relaunch the show.

Jennifer Mullin, group CEO, Fremantle

Thanks to the innovative Amazon Freevee platform, many classic episodes will be available to fans, and Neighbours will go back into full production in Australia early in 2023, providing our fans with new episodes. This partnership marks an exciting new chapter.

Marion Ranchet, founder and MD, The Local Act Consultancy

I had a theory about soap operas as a streaming retention tool and now Freevee has picked up the Aussie soap Neighbours. It makes even more sense in the FAST space. By picking up this show, Freevee uses the appointment TV recipe. Now, who’s next? Could Pluto TV revive Plus belle la vie, a French soap that just ended after 18 seasons?

Mark Lazarus, chairman, NBCUniversal Television & Streaming

With a large percentage of the Days of Our Lives audience already watching digitally, this move enables us to build the show’s loyal fanbase on streaming while simultaneously bolstering the network daytime offering with an urgent, live programming opportunity for partners and consumers.

Adam Sharp, president and CEO, National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences

The transition of Days Of Our Lives from NBC to Peacock is yet another illustration that ‘daytime’ as we know it is now anytime, on any device. Viewers remain invested in the genre but are no longer beholden to just a linear broadcast at a fixed time of day.

Scott McKinsey, director, Days of Our Lives Days of Our Lives has not been cancelled, and/or ‘picked up’ by Peacock. This is a big difference from the sad demise of ABC’s One Life to Live and All My Children. In fact, the prospect of Days remaining in production for the long-term just increased as a result of this move. Without Peacock, Days’ days might have been numbered on the network.

Caroline Hollick, head of drama, Channel 4

It feels like a natural step for Hollyoaks, with its youthful outlook and audience, to be the first UK soap to premiere new episodes on our streaming service on an ongoing basis. Our loyal audience want to get their soap fix when they want, where they want it and the series’ continued popularity on All 4 proves that with this new ‘stream-first’ approach we are serving a much broader range of viewers.

Lucy Allan, exec producer, Hollyoaks

We are excited to see Hollyoaks embrace the digital-first proposition so favoured by its youth-skewing audience. This feels progressive and full of opportunities for the show.

New episodes of Hollyoaks now debut on AVoD service All 4

By Nico Franks

Aformer VP of content acquisitions for Latin America, Spain and Portugal at Netflix, Rodrigo Mazón joined US Hispanic broadcaster Univision in mid-2021, prior to its merger with Mexican media firm Televisa in 2022 to create a Spanish-language media and content giant.

The merged entity, TelevisaUnivision, quickly got its VoD ducks in a row, unveiling ViX and calling it the “first global large-scale streaming service created specifically for the Spanish-speaking world.”

The free, ad-supported tier launched in the first quarter of 2022, while the SVoD tier, ViX+, arrived in the second half of the year with 10,000 hours of programming, including original telenovelas, scripted series, movies, sports documentary series and football matches from leagues across the world.

At launch, its roster of originals included dramas La Mujer del Diablo and María Félix: La Doña and cartel docuseries Mi Vecino El Cartel, the latter of which is produced by pop star and actor Selena Gomez.

In an increasingly crowded global streaming market, TelevisaUnivision believes the last major unfilled gap is for a Spanish-language streamer.

The service, which costs US$6.99 in the US and MX$119 (US$6.08) in Mexico, is on its way to launching more than 70 originals in its first year and aims to become profitable in 2024 – no mean feat when there are question marks about the sustainability of the subscription streaming model.

“On the one hand, we’re maintaining and optimising our traditional businesses, which is the linear part of TelevisaUnivision, and on the other we are committed to investing brand new money, in fact a few billion dollars over the next few years, to build out ViX and ViX+,” says Mazón, executive VP and general manager of SVoD at TelevisaUnivision.