Executive Producer Sheila Ducksworth. Sonja Flemming/CBS
CBS is expanding the daytime soap landscape with The Gates, the first Black-led series in more than three decades.
The network announced on Monday, April 15, that The Gates has been greenlit for a full-season order. The soap will premiere in January 2025, but the specific date and time slot has not been revealed.
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The Gates will follow a wealthy Black family that resides in a “posh, gated community,” according to CBS.
Former General Hospital and The Bold & the Beautiful writer Michele Val Jean will serve as showrunner and writer on the show. Val Jean, who has written more than 2,000 daytime drama episodes, will also be an executive producer on the project.
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Sheila Ducksworth, Leon Russell, Derrick Johnson and Kimberly Doebereiner will join Val Jean as executive producers.
The pickup order came one month after CBS revealed that The Gates was in development. The show — which is a joint venture between CBS Studios and the NAACP — will mark the first daytime soap centered on a Black family since 1989’s Generations.
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“The Gates will be everything we love about daytime drama, from a new and fresh perspective,” Ducksworth, president of the CBS Studios NAACP venture, said in a March press release. “This series will salute an audience that has been traditionally underserved, with the potential to be a groundbreaking moment for broadcast television.”
She continued: “With multi-dimensional characters, juicy storylines and Black culture front and center, The Gates will have impactful representation, one of the key touchstones of the venture.”
Executive Producer Michele Val Jean. Sonja Flemming/CBS
Ducksworth said she was “excited” to work on the project with CBS and P&G Studios (a division of Procter & Gamble), calling both companies “passionate champions of broadcast and daytime television.”
She praised the NAACP for its “enduring commitment to Black voices and artists” as “powerful and inspiring.” The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a human rights organization founded in 1909, which promotes civil rights and interracial advancement for African Americans.
In addition to being the first Black-centered soap opera in 35 years, The Gates is also breaking the mold in the greater daytime soap genre. The last time a new daytime soap premiered was in 1999 with NBC’s Passions.
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CBS hasn’t launched a fresh soap since 1987’s The Bold & the Beautiful began. The daytime landscape has changed drastically over the past decade with only three soaps remaining on broadcast TV.
The Young & the Restless, The Bold & the Beautiful and General Hospital are still on air, while Days of Our Lives moved from NBC to its streamer Peacock in 2022. ABC canceled two of the longest-running soaps, All My Children and One Life to Live, in 2011.
Earlier this month, CBS announced that The Talk is ending in December 2024 after 15 seasons. Many fans are hopeful The Gates will get the talk show’s time slot.
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