GENERAL HOSPITAL at TCA: Executive Producer Frank Valentini Says He’s ‘Pretty Confident’ About the Soap’s Future

There’s no denying the soap landscape is changing. After all, in the past year, ABC has said goodbye to both ALL MY CHILDREN and ONE LIFE TO LIVE, leaving GENERAL HOSPITAL as the one remaining daytime drama.

But despite the massive shakeup, executive producer Frank Valentini (who previously worked on ONE LIFE TO LIVE) seemed pretty confident when he appeared in front of the Television Critics Association for a GENERAL HOSPITAL panel on Thursday.

“I don’t think that it will change in the near future that the television market that exists in the United States right now will ever be anything other than challenging,” Valentini acknowledged. “And all I can say is they invited us here [for this panel]. To me that’s a great sign, and they’re behind us 100 percent. They’re very excited about the 50th anniversary [on April 1, 2013], and we’ll be laying and rolling out lots of different things between now and April and past then. So I’m pretty confident. I feel like it’s very exciting. You just need to watch the show to sort of catch the energy and the momentum that we have, and the network’s a big part of that.”

Part of the upcoming change? The series will be moving time slots and airing one hour earlier starting in September to make way for Katie Couric’s new series.

“I think the time slot change will be great,” he said. “I think it will shake up the lineup a little bit, and I like the way that we’re being positioned with the other shows that are surrounding us. I think that the network…is doing a big push to inform the audience about the time change, and, yes, we are doing a big umbrella story and have a lot of really fun surprises, a lot of terrific stuff coming on in September.”

Are you hopeful GENERAL HOSPITAL will be sticking around?

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