I saw this briefly on the news and was a little sad and surprised. Strangely, I never watch the channel-obviously ratings are the reason for the departure; but I really like the concept of an all soaps channel. I would love for there to be a retro soap channel, on demand, or online feed that could just stream current dailies and classic nighttime soaps in an effort to keep the genre alive. I really like the old stuff, but don't watch anything new!
More importantly, I think this is another nail in the coffin for soaps in general, and though I don't watch or agree with all the over long formula melodrama, I do think it is important for a network to have an ongoing pool of cast, crew, and writing to pull from. Without this training ground I expect prime time network tv to get worse than it already is, and right now its so sucky I don't watch anything there either.
Pure and simple I think soapnet fell because it strayed from its original audience of the rerun soaps. You can get modern stuff like the first 90210, chick flicks and One Tree Hill anywhere today. Ryan's Hope at 6 am? Dallas taken off the air? Is Falcon Crest on dvd? They should have been content with their niche over 40 female demographic-because honestly, there is no one appealing to that demo now, except maybe Hallmark and the new GMC gossip music station turning into retro wholesome programming.
I know people joke about the original soap demographic dying off, but I've work in senior facilites where women are living into the 110s and still watch their soaps like clockwork. It's not the number of people that are falling off, just the number of individual tvs. A dozen women a day with one tv doesn't look good to the preciously outdated Neilsons.
Oh well. Disney however is a beast and they don't need anymore channels or crappy direct to dvd sequels. If the channel must be replaced, do with anything but more Disney! I guess no one bothered to realize it isn't daytime moms with babies watching or not watching soaps. Its late night folks catching up on the soap reruns. TV execs are just stupid.