Nine axes Days of our Lives after 45 years
Time runs out for iconic daytime soap, axed from Nine's schedule after 45 years.
- Published by David Knox
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“Like sands through the hour-glass, so are the Days of Our Lives…”
Time has run out for the long-running US soap, set to be dumped by Nine after 45 years on the network.
First broadcast on Nine in 1968, the daytime drama will have its last-ever episode on Friday April 26.
Nine is revamping the timeslot. A Nine spokesperson told TV Tonight, “We made a commercial decision not to renew Days Of Our Lives.”
Yet last week it won its 2pm timeslot, averaging 126,000 viewers and pipping TEN’s Ready Steady Cook (124,000) and Seven’s Dr. Oz (118,000). It ranked second the week before.
In 2007 Nine dropped The Young and the Restless after 31 years for the short-lived panel show The Catch-Up. Fans flooded Nine’s online forums at the time. Foxtel wasted no time in snapping up the show, which now airs on Arena.
The last few years have been tough for US daytime soaps with The Guiding Light, As the World Turns, Passions, All My Children and One Life to Live all axed before the latter two received a lifeline to be produced for online.
Days is still one of the longest-running scripted shows in the world and one of the longest-running television shows in Australia.
It was recently renewed by NBC until September 2014.
Sony Pictures Television is understood to be pursuing other broadcasting opportunities in Australia.
Nine is yet to announce a replacement show.
89 Responses
A little stunned, but not surprised by this news as I felt strongly that this Day was near. I know it’s down to accountants controlling the network, but please allow me this tribute.
Days was Australia’s longest Continuously running scripted drama. When it started in 1968, nine was showing Peyton Place and Coronation Street in Prime time. It’s success meant that by the 1970s we got to see other daytime soaps like General Hospital and days long time stabelmate The Young and the Restless. Even before I started watching it in high school, I new of characters like Doug and Julie as it was my mothers favorite show. So characters like Doug, Julie, Bo and Hope, John and Marlena and even Sami have become like family. 45 years is a tremendous achivement, you would have thought nine could have trialed it on Gem before discarding a show, so much a part of its history.
Maybe Days will end up back with Y&R on pay tv. With the recent buzz on how succesful General Hospitals 50th anniversary episodes have been, I had a vain hope that all three would be back on fta but alas we only get talk shows and news during the day now 🙁
Don’t care about Days Of Our Lives and I have never seen one episode of the show, but I do hope Nine leaves the show “Ellen” alone because I love that show.
It would have got even more viewers on Nine if it was fast tracked & not stopped every year for cricket.
Even Bold on Ten is only a few weeks behind the US.
I have been watching days since primary school when I would watch in the school hols with my mother.
Nine please reconsider or move it to Gem…anywhere.
Definitely “No” disrespect im[lied or intemded towards young and old devotees and I respect their feelings of their of loss, after Nine’s decission and “The Passing Parade”of another of these long running soaps.
But I just can not help myself for the following, and for what is is worth I am in my 70’s and had devotee parents of my own, and I enjoyed the fact that I could miss months and months of DooL, but could imediately pick up that days storyline.
Wow!! 45 years using the same story line week in week out, where only the names dates and places where changed to protect but entrap the incoherent.
Vale “Nines Days of Our Drearies”
i remember when i was a kid in the 70’s and 80’s watching with my mother days of our lives, the young and the restless, general hospital and search for tommorow
Now making entertainment news in the US.
Hopefully Seven or Ten have the sense to pick this up. Agree with Andy, who’s going to go rummaging through youtube trying to find an episode. Nine is really starting to become what Ten has been since the 90’s with their style of programming by alienating huge chunks of the populace and targetting a very narrow viewership. Days really is the last bastion of soaps as we know them.
More evidence, as if we needed any, that nine don’t care about their viewers. Nothing has changed.
Note to nine: the money you spent buying The Following, which you are then editing (like Episodes and many other shows before it) should have been spent on DOOL instead and let a network who won’t mess with the shows air them instead!
What are they going to replace it with?
More repeats of The Big Bang Theory?
It’s clear from the number of comments that this post has generated that it’s a hot topic. No one in here is saying “Good riddance!”, even those who don’t watch the show. As Andy Pandy said, watching the episodes on the net isn’t an option for most of the elderly people who watch the show on a daily basis, many of whom have been watching the show since its inception. Judging by the ads that they’re showing during DOOL as I write this, they’re expecting their main demo to be stay-at-home mums (rather than older retirees).
Now you know how I felt when 7two axed Hollyoaks and Shortland Street.
Again i stress that Nine Entertainment Co. are owned by two Hedge Funds, Apollo and Oaktree Capital. My point is that they only care about money money and you guessed it money. This doesnt surpise me at all. Remember Nine had a huge chunkoff debt and as Kerry Stokes said to the politicians the two hedge funds are not in the business of charity, money is their game. So if the contract to renew Days of Our Lives is too expensive then they will dump it, remember they also overpaid for the NRL so they have gottot make the money back somehow. Get used to it people time are tough.
@secret squirrel, thanks I will have a look at that. The trouble is many older viewers don’t even have a computer and look forward to watching DOOL every day at 2pm as I do too.
Wouldn’t the on line shows be the latest from USA, and seeing as how we are 18months behind, how easy is it to find the shows we are up to here?
Channel 9 are making a big mistake.
I assume it will make way for a new 2pm news bulletin?
Memo to TEN: Don’t get any ideas about B&B.
Channel 9 needs their heads read. Simply keep it. After 45 years and rating well. Why? Motto: If it aint broke don’t fix it
This is the worst news! I’ve been watching it for almost 15 years and I’m only 22! I really want channel 10 to pick it up, otherwise I’ll have to watch it online.
Devo. They couldn’t just put it on Gem? Can it really be that expensive to buy?
This is an outrage. This is the best drama I have seen in many many years. Ok looks like a boycott of Channel 9 and a huge letter writing campaign will have to begin. Why don’t they axe rubbish like House Husbands instead?
With so many tryhard shows supposedly being made for “youth” these days, this was one of the last non tryhard shows left. And it had the distinction of having virtually all of its characters being 35+ with a vast amount being 55+ but that doesn’t mean the show is only watched by older people.
It also has the distinction of being the only serious drama on TV these days with virtually no comedic elements and incorporating all those classic soapie staples like end of episode cliffhangers, dramatic sequences and suspense that keeps viewers on the edge of their seats and is exactly what a good drama should do. Let’s see House Husbands do that!
The fact that it’s first in the ratings only makes it worse. Nine has messed with an institution and this will not be forgiven.
@andy pandy – “…we will never know what happened.”
There’s this thing called the internet.
youtube.com/user/Daysofourlivesonline – all you can eat 24/7.
I showed my mum the YouTube channels which are at U.S pace and she hasn’t looked back.
Everyone, try ringing channel 9 to express your disgust! I just did and the lady answering the phone was so rude and abrupt with me, she basically didn’t care.
Please put it on gem or channel 10 pick it up, after all, what other rubbish are they going to put on instead?
The storylines are getting really good with EJ’s mum coming back, the gay storyline with Will, and the mystery left behind by Hope’s gran, we will never know what happened.
I’m quite upset by this news. Is there any chance it will move to Seven or Ten or would they not be interested either?
If it will remain on FTA I can only see TEN being interested as they have fairly good ratings for Bold and the Beautiful (sometimes beating primetime shows). However, more than likely it’ll go to STV. Arena would be the favourite network to pick it up given it already airs Young & the Restless, but given it’s a Sony show I can see first offer going to TV1 (with TV1 being 1/3 owned by Sony and TV1 shareholders having a habit of withholding shows they have produced in the U.S. from competing networks until it is suitable for them to air it – for example, look at the CSI franchise).
Are Hope and Bo off the island yet?