Broadcast Empire v0.13.1
This update brings soaps into Broadcast Empire as a proper long-running programming system, alongside improvements to talent generation, rights handling, Workshop support and franchise pacing.
New: Soaps
Soaps are now a full commissioning category, built for high-volume scheduling and long-term audience loyalty.
- Added 20 new soap formats, including family soaps, teen soaps, daytime soaps and telenovella-style young adult soaps.
- Added new soap title card artwork.
- Soap commissions now support 2-5 episodes per week production frequency.
- Soap budgets now account for bigger casts, writing room costs, production pace and episode volume.
- Soap repeats can be bought as completed episode batches.
- Added a new Soap Desk on show detail pages.
Soap Storylines And Cast Management
Soaps now have ongoing story arcs and regular characters.
- Start soap storylines such as weddings, returns, stunts, family secrets and issue-led plots.
- Storyline fit now depends on the soap’s format: Family, Teen, Young Adult or Daytime.
- Storylines can affect viewing, buzz, press risk and season momentum.
- Soap casts now generate named regular characters from hired talent.
- Players can recast or drop soap characters.
- Viewer backlash and casting problems can now generate news items.
Audience And Ratings
- Added a new Soap Regulars audience segment.
- Soaps now interact with channel identity, advertiser preferences, viewer personas and daypart fit.
- Soap storyline effects now appear in ratings summaries.
- Creative direction choices now have specific soap effects.
- Talent age fit now matters more for soap casting.
Franchise And IP Balance
Soap IP now develops more slowly and rewards sustained performance.
- Soap franchises now use slower-burn IP pacing.
- Soap IP requires stronger long-term broadcast performance before becoming valuable.
- Licensing, merchandise, buyer demand and franchise heat now scale differently for soaps.
Rights Market And Pilot Improvements
- Improved live rights offer handling.
- Added clearer event dates and recurring/one-off labelling.
- Improved filtering for rights opportunities based on available broadcast hours.
- Workshop live rights can now support much larger recurring event counts.
- Pilot season now has clearer filtering and episode-order handling.
Talent And Images
- Added a new 18-20 actor age group.
- Added new young actor portrait pools.
- Added producer and director portrait pools.
- Improved generated talent handling for age groups and crew images.
Workshop
Workshop data packs now support more soap content.
- Workshop packs can define soap shows with alignment, production frequency and cast structure.
- Workshop packs can include custom soap storylines.
- Added soap-specific fields to the Workshop authoring UI.
- Added a new soap arcs tab.
- Updated Workshop documentation.
Other Changes
- Expanded repeat availability and starting repeat library variety.
- Improved several dense management screens.
- Added save-shape safeguards for the new soap, rights and talent systems.