Television Daytime Dramas

By: Laura Onofrio

The most significant event in the evolution of the soap opera genre was when daytime serials were transferred from radio to television. As the television grew in popularity and the new medium was becoming increasingly common within households advertising companies began to abandon the sponsorship of radio programming and transferred their support to the endorsement of television programming. "Daytime television was created from daytime radio as the daytime radio schedule was transferred, almost intact, to the new medium (Cantor: 1983:19)." Like radio serials television soap operas were initially 15 minutes in length and were played on various networks through the hours of 10 AM and 6 PM. The reason for their short format was because networks did not feel that they could sustain themselves for a longer period of time but in 1956, Irna Phillips developed As the World Turns in a half-hour format and proved that the network's reservations were inaccurate as audiences remained interesting in the story and the popularity of the genre prevailed (Edmondson & Rounds: 1973:5). Almost decades later several daytime serials moved from the half-hour standard format to the hour-long format which exists today.

Today there are nine soap operas, All My Children (ABC), As the World Turns (CBS), Days of our Lives (NBC), General Hospital (ABC), Guiding Light (CBS), One Life to Live (ABC), The Young and the Restless (CBS), Bold and the Beautiful (CBS), Passions (NBC) that are broadcast on three different television networks. Although each soap has unique characteristics they all remain true to the essential characteristics and the formula created nearly 65 years ago by the Hummerts and Irna Phillips.