Locher Room Talk

Alan Locher’s YouTube show, THE LOCHER ROOM, which reunites fan faves from all across the daytime dial, marked its first anniversary on April 2. Here, Locher reveals how the show came to be — and thrived.

- Stephanie Sloane

Soap Opera Digest: How did you get into soaps?

Alan Locher: I grew up watching AS THE WORLD TURNS and GUIDING LIGHT, and one of the first resumés I sent out was to the ad agency that repped them. When I got out of college — I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in communications — I got a job working for REGIS AND KATHIE LEE. Shortly after I started with them, Disney bought the show and syndicated them and I went to work for Disney and I basically learned PR working for them. For me, when I left Disney, I spent a year at a PR agency and I think I might have applied to the ad agency again and they didn’t have a job but said they would keep my resumé on file. And then Mickey Dwyer-Dobbin came into Procter & Gamble and restructured the marketing department and that’s when I was brought in.

Digest: How long were you there?

Locher: I was there for 12 ½ years; sadly, until the shows went off the air. To be a fan and to be there at the end, and to love those shows and the people, was unfortunate. On April 1, when the shows got canceled in what everyone hoped was an April Fool’s, I was signing a lease for a new apartment and was like, “Okay, should I be signing this lease?” and my husband said, “Yes, we should.”

Digest: What did you do next?

Locher: I went to On Location Tours, where I was the senior director, PR/marketing and sales. It’s a TV and movie tour company in New York City that takes people around New York City and shows them where TV shows and movies have been filmed. The SEX AND THE CITY and GOSSIP GIRL tours were big.

Digest: And then the pandemic hit in 2020. What did you do next?