General Hospital Needs to Do a Crazy Number of Episodes a Week to Stay Profitable

To keep bringing the network profit, some shows have to go to extreme lengths. Case in point: General Hospital, whose cast and crew has to shoot a frankly ridiculous number of episodes per week just to maintain profitability.

Having been on air for decades, General Hospital deals with insane amount of pressure, juggling dozens of actors (who are also normal human beings and very much appreciate going on long vacations) and simultaneously tasked with keeping viewers engaged and interested enough. Try doing that after fifty or so years!

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So, as General Hospital executive producer Frank Valentini explained, the number of episodes the show's production team needs to do a week is six to seven:

"That's just the reality of our financial situation right now, to keep the show profitable enough for the network to keep it on the air, but also for us to have enough money to do what we need to do artistically and keep the volume of cast members that we have."

Considering that some prestige dramas spend months and maybe even years on just a dozen episodes, this number is certainly eyebrow-raising.

Amazingly, even with 6-7 episodes per week, the General Hospital team somehow manages to find new storylines and still keep viewers glued to their screens. At the same time, unlike another super-popular ABC drama, Grey's Anatomy, the writers of General Hospital do not draw inspiration from current events, no matter how meaningful, dramatic and even life-changing they may be.

According to the writers of General Hospital, new storylines are most often based on natural character development, which is why the plotlines on General Hospital are timeless and appeal to different generations. How the writers managed to avoid writing themselves into a hole after all these dozens of years on air is anyone's guess.