ABC Keeps ‘General Hospital’ On, Cancels ‘The Revolution’, Adds ‘GMA’ Afternoon Show For Summer

With The Revolution hitting a string of lows over the last few weeks and drawing a little more than half of the audience of GH and The Chew, it is understandable why ABC opted to keep GH, which is down year-to-year but still higher-rated than both The Chew and The Revolution, instead of angering fans by killing another beloved soap for a show that hasn’t proven itself. The renewal comes on the heels of GH drawing 2.26 million viewers for the week of March 26, a up a tenth from the previous week. The Chew (2.21 million) was up 8%, whileThe Revolution (1.33 million) remained low, in line with its series-low viewership for the previous two weeks (1.33 million, 1.32 million). What’s more, while The Chew‘s ratings have been largely on par with those of the soap it replaced, AMC, at a fraction of the production cost, The Revolution (average of 1.5 million viewers to date, 337,000 of them in the women 18-49 demographic) is down 44% in total viewers and 51% in W18-49 from OLTL‘s deliveries. Among the the three, GH is the highest rated in women 18-49 by a wide margin (most recently a 0.9/6 for the week of March 26 vs. 0.6/4 The Chew and 0.4/3 for The Revolution), so, while I hear ABC is not ready to lock in its daytime schedule for next season yet, it would make sense to keep The Chew at 1 PM and put GH at 2 PM as a lead-in for Katie on the ABC stations, the core station group that will carry Couric’s new syndicated talker.

The renewal ensures that GH, which marked 49 years on the air on April 1, will celebrate its 50th anniversary next April. It is the longest-running U.S. soap opera currently in production. Created by husband-and-wife soap writers Frank and Doris Hursley, GH also holds the record for most Daytime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Drama Series: 10.