The History of American Soap Operas

Many people enjoy watching soap operas or TV series on cable TV or streaming platforms like Hulu, Disney+, Netflix, Prime Video, and many more. In this article, we’ll talk about which shows in America were most watched, the history of soap operas, and how they evolved through the years.

What is a soap opera?

A soap opera is a lengthy radio or television serial that frequently features sentimentality, ensemble casts, and melodrama. Low-budget Westerns were referred to as “horse opera” before the term “soap opera,” which came from radio dramas supported by soap manufacturers. The Archers on BBC Radio is the world’s longest-running radio soap opera, and Coronation Street on television is the longest-running soap opera as of today. The storyline of soap operas is always open-ended, with each episode concluding with a promise that it will be picked up in a subsequent episode. Episodes frequently end on cliffhangers and are written concurrently, connecting, and leading to further developments.

The entire cast and all current storylines are more likely to be featured in each episode of evening soap operas and those that air once a week. Time magazine referred to American daytime television in 1976 as “TV’s richest market,” citing the devoted viewership of soap operas and the elongation of several half-hour series into hour-long broadcasts to optimize advertising revenue.

History of Soap Opera

In 1930, WGN Radio Chicago debuted the daytime soap opera Painted Dreams, which primarily catered to female listeners. The first network radio serial, Clara, Lu, ‘n Em, debuted on the NBC Blue Network in 1931 and was the first daytime and weekday serial. The targets of both programs were housewives.

Plots and Storylines in Soap Operas

Family life, relationships among people, sexual dramas, moral and emotional conflicts, and familiar home interiors are all highlighted in soap operas. They frequently center on a large extended family or follow the lives of characters who work or reside in a specific location. 

Australian and British soap operas frequently center on common people and events and are set in working-class settings. They frequently have humorous elements and endearing comic stereotypes that balance the emotional chaos around them. UK soap operas frequently emphasize their geographical location while claiming to portray “reality” or a “realistic” aesthetic.

Many soap opera plots are based on romance, secret relationships, affairs outside of marriage, and sincere hatred. Popular characters in US daytime serials frequently have romantic plots, and romance is a major element of Australian and UK soap operas. Major life events are disrupted by unanticipated disasters remarkably frequently.

Since it’s hard to depict action scenes and stunts without complicated movements, multiple takes, and post-production editing, you won’t see many stunts or complex physical action scenes, especially in daytime serials.

Soap opera in the United States

These Are My Children, the first daytime TV soap opera in the US, debuted in 1949. Melodramas and game shows then followed. In the early 1950s, talk shows, game shows, and sitcom reruns were all accepted on American daytime television, along with soap operas. Numerous long-running American soap operas, including Days of Our Lives, The Edge of Night, As the World Turns, Guiding Light, Doctors and General Hospital, and The Young and the Restless, created distinct settings for their stories.

When soap operas were first broadcast live from the studio, they had a stage play-like atmosphere. Los Angeles began producing new serials like General Hospital, Days of Our Lives, and The Young and the Restless, which gave the West Coast a competitive edge over soap operas produced in New York. Almost all soap operas had switched to tape by the early 1970s. In the past, Port Charles ran 13-week “story arcs,” with some storylines spanning multiple arcs. Though it was briefly considered, the idea of all ABC shows doing telenovela arcs was rejected.

Although CBS and ABC have aired previous episodes on significant holidays or during last-minute cancellations due to breaking news coverage, US daytime soap operas are not typically rebroadcast overseas. Reruns of The Edge of Night‘s final five years ran late at night on USA Network from 1985 to 1989 following the show’s cancellation in 1984. Soapnet, a digital cable and satellite network devoted to the genre, started rebroadcasting soap operas that had first appeared on ABC, NBC, and CBS on January 20, 2000.

Since the late 1980s, syndicated programming and reruns have largely replaced soap operas in daytime schedules on newer broadcast networks like Fox and cable television networks. While TBS and CBN Cable Network broadcast their soap operas. Between 2006 and 2007, Fox tried a daily prime-time soap opera series, but the show’s ratings were so low that it was mostly a failure. Except for Dark Shadows, daytime soap operas are noteworthy for not being included in DVD release schedules.

Evolution of Soap Operas

Initially, daytime soap operas, which were frequently set in imaginary, medium-sized Midwestern towns, concentrated on romance, legal drama, and family and marital conflict. Storylines addressing social issues were gradually incorporated, starting with Bert Bauer’s storyline on uterine cancer in 1962. 

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the soap operas One Life to Live and All My Children, written and produced by Agnes Nixon, debuted these stories. Series such as The Edge of Night and Dark Shadows gradually began to feature exotic location shoots; real-world locations were used for The Best of Everything and Ryan’s Hope.

Daytime soap operas started incorporating big-business intrigue, youthful romance, and action and adventure plotlines in the 1980s. Super couples were created as a result of both male and female fans being drawn to well-known couples like Luke Spencer and Laura Webber on General Hospital. Mob, action, and adventure stories lost popularity in the 1990s as a result of falling viewership and budget cuts. Rather, younger characters and social issues like racism, rape, abortion, AIDS, cancer, and drug addiction were the main focus of soap operas. To increase viewership, some television programs filled science fiction and supernatural themes into their narratives.

The Decline of Soap Operas

As of September 2022, there were only four daytime soap operas in production, a shocking decline in soap opera ratings in the United States since the 2000s. This is the first time that just four soap operas have aired on broadcast television since 1953. As of February 2012, The Young and the Restless, the highest-rated soap opera from 1988 to the present, had less than 5 million daily viewers. Soap opera magazines are publishing fewer issues, and some have stopped altogether. After shifting from prime-time network television to smaller cable channels in 2012, the Daytime Emmy Awards—which honor soap operas and other daytime shows—were not broadcast on television in 2014, 2016, or 2017. Between 2009 and 2012, a number of the longest-running American soap operas came to an end: Days of Our Lives, Guiding Light, As the World Turns, and All My Children.

The rise of talk shows, game shows, and court shows as alternatives to soap operas as a dominant form of melodrama, as well as the growth of cable and the Internet, are all considered contributing factors to the decline of soap operas on daytime television. Even though these alternatives have somewhat lower ratings, networks find them more appealing and profitable. The Great Recession put a financial strain on scripted programming, which in turn led to production choices like cliche storylines, a dearth of diversity, and a breakdown of central families that expanded the genre’s downfall.

We’d like to show you some of the top shows of 2022–2023 and how many viewers they had.

• NFL Sunday Night Football 

• • This can be watched on NBC. 
  • It gained 18,136 viewers.

• Yellowstone 

• • This can be watched on Paramount Network. 
  • It gained 11,550 viewers.

• NFT Monday Night Football 

• • This can be watched on ESPN. 
  • It gained 10,138 viewers.

• NCIS 

• • This can be watched on CBS. 
  • It gained 9,833 viewers.

• FBI 

• • This can also be watched on CBS. 
  • It gained 9,524 viewers.

• NFL Thursday Night Football

• • This can be watched on Amazon.
  • It gained 9,446 viewers.

• Young Sheldon

• • This can be watched on CBS as well.
  • It gained 9,287 viewers.

• Chicago Fire

• • This can be watched on NBC.
  • It gained 9,253 viewers.

• Blue Bloods

• • This can also be watched on CBS. 
  • It gained 9,242 viewers.

• Ghosts

• • This can also be watched on CBS.
  • It gained 9,085 viewers.

You can also look at Spin Genie’s list of the UK’s most favorite Soaps.