The cast, including Matt Lauer, Meredith Vieira, Ann Curry and Al Roker, is scheduled to hold a news conference today at the Television Critics Association (TCA) winter preview tour to announce the news show expansion. The Today Show is a great cash-earner for NBC and has been around for 55 years. NBC recently announced that they would be expanding the popular Today Show from three to four hours weekdays. Now, nearly a year later, NBC has cancelled the soap. As a result, $4-5 million was slashed from the yearly budget and caused several crewmembers and performers to be let go. When NBC renewed the series in May 2006, the network renewed it only for one year and required significant budget cuts. The soap has been in danger for quite some time. Now it looks like Passions will be replaced itself. The supernatural sudser takes place in fictional New England town Harmony and replaced the long-running Another World. Reilly is the head writer on the soap and is an executive producer with Lisa de Cazotte. Passions debuted on July 5, 1999 and was created by Jim Reilly, a writer from Days of Our Lives.

Still, things may not be as grim as they may seem.

This comes as a shock to some but the writing has been on the wall for awhile. The peacock network is announcing today that the eight-year-old soap Passions has been cancelled.

How to watch passions soap opera