CBS announced on Tuesday that it will be cancelling daytime soap As The World Turns after 54 years and 13,000 episodes, according to Variety.  You might wonder why this news is relevant to The Flickcast, but the slow disappearance of scripted daytime dramas causes shock-waves throughout the entire entertainment industry, whether you were a fan or not.

Earlier this year, The Guiding Light was canceled after 72 years on the air. Anytime scripted dramas are being dropped, we should take note, because it could set a dangerous precedent. Desperate networks are pulling the plug on original product, and replacing it with game shows or other alternatives.  There is no question these cancellations signal the end of an era.

Take a look at what NBC did to their prime time schedule.  They did the unspeakable, and pretty much gave up on cost-prohibitive scripted television.  Now we get Jay Leno, for better or worse, five times a week.  That’s five hours of scripted television a week wiped clean from the slate.

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The new kids on the television block are going to be just fine, if the early return numbers are any indication. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the debuts of new shows this fall have bucked the last two years’ trend of low premiere numbers. NBC’s The Jay Leno Show, Fox’s Family Guy spin-off The Cleveland Show, CBS’ NCIS: Los Angeles and ABC’s three-headed monster of Cougar Town, Modern Family and FlashForward have all benefited from large turnouts.

Even with the oncoming onslaught of new and “fan-favorite” programs, the CW’s Vampire Diaries continued to show promise. But not all shows are sitting pretty as the law of averages always seems to have an opinion on, well, everything. ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy – formally a ratings juggernaut – has shown signs of slipping, and you can include genre staples NBC’s Heroes and CW’s Smallville into that mix as well.

For whom the bell tolls? Fox’s Fringe and ABC’s Desperate Housewives have dropped to the point that their respective networks are beginning to sweat a bit, and the departure of William Petersen from CBS’ CSI: Crime Scene Investigations has had a similar effect on that show’s ratings. If returns don’t improve, these shows could end up like CW’s TBL: DOA.