Contract Negotiations May Delay All My Children's Online Launch

As if soap fans haven't had enough heartbreak already, it now seems that contract negotiations will delay All My Children's move to the web by a few months, New York Times reports.

ABC's canceled soaps will live again online

AMC is set to air its last episode on ABC on Sept. 23 and was expected to hit the web just a few days later. But the formation of new budgets and negotiations with production unions and guilds may postpone the return to Pine Valley until early 2012. (One Life to Live, which isn't scheduled to go dark until January 2012, will likely move to the web uninterrupted.)

Earlier this month, ABC sold the online rights to both shows in a multi-year deal to Prospect Park, a company led by Royal Pains executive producers Rich Frank and Jeff Kwatinetz.

Alexa Havins and Justin Bruening to return to All My Children

"We are in the process of working out the essential terms of our proposed collective bargaining agreements with the appropriate guilds and unions, which we must do prior to firming up deals with above- and below-the-line talent," Prospect Park said in a statement Monday.

Both All My Children and One Life to Live will continue story lines uninterrupted on the new network. The shows' crews and actors are expected to remain in place.