A soap opera, daytime drama, or soap for short, is typically a long-running radio or television serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored by soap manufacturers. The term was preceded by "horse opera", a derogatory term for low-budget Westerns.
The Edge of Night is an American mystery crime drama television series and soap opera, created by Irving Vendig and produced by Procter & Gamble Productions.
The Young and the Restless is an American television soap opera created by William J. Bell and Lee Phillip Bell for CBS. The show is set in the fictional Genoa City. First broadcast on March 26, 1973, The Young and the Restless was originally broadcast as half-hour episodes, five times a week. The show expanded to one-hour episodes on February 4, 1980. On March 17, 2006, the series began airing previous episodes weeknights on Soapnet until its closure on December 31, 2013, after which the series moved to TVGN. From July 1, 2013 until 2019, Pop aired previous episodes on weeknights. The series is also syndicated internationally.
Guiding Light is an American radio and television soap opera. Guiding Light aired on CBS for 57 years between June 30, 1952, and September 18, 2009, overlapping a 19-year broadcast on radio between January 25, 1937, and June 29, 1956. With 72 years of radio and television runs, Guiding Light is the longest-running soap opera, ahead of General Hospital, and is the fifth-longest-running program in all of broadcast history; only the American country music radio program Grand Ole Opry, the BBC religious program The Daily Service (1928), the CBS religious program Music and the Spoken Word (1929), and the Norwegian children's radio program Lørdagsbarnetimen (1924–2010) have been on the air longer.
As the World Turns is an American television soap opera that aired on CBS for 54 years from April 2, 1956, to September 17, 2010. Irna Phillips created As the World Turns as a sister show to her other soap opera Guiding Light. With 13,763 hours of cumulative narrative, As the World Turns has the longest total running time of any television show. In terms of continuous run of production, As the World Turns at 54 years holds the fourth-longest run of any daytime network soap opera on American television, surpassed only by General Hospital, Guiding Light, and Days of Our Lives. As the World Turns was produced for its first 43 years in Manhattan and in Brooklyn from 2000 until 2010.
Agnes Nixon was an American television writer and producer, and the creator of the ABC soap operas One Life to Live, All My Children, as well as Loving and its spin-off The City.
The Doctors is an American daytime soap opera television series which aired on NBC from April 1, 1963, to December 31, 1982.
The City is an American television soap opera that aired on ABC from November 13, 1995, to March 28, 1997. The series was a continuation of the serial Loving, which ran from 1983 until 1995, and featured the surviving central characters of the latter's final major story arc, which saw most of the show's characters fall victim to a serial killer. The characters that survived moved from Corinth, Pennsylvania, to New York City and settled in the Manhattan neighborhood of SoHo.
Capitol is an American soap opera which aired on CBS from March 29, 1982, to March 20, 1987, for 1,270 episodes. As its name suggests, the storyline usually revolved around the political intrigues of people whose lives are intertwined in Washington, D.C.
Search for Tomorrow is an American television soap opera. It began its run on CBS on September 3, 1951, and concluded on NBC, 35 years later, on December 26, 1986.
Love of Life is an American soap opera televised on CBS from September 24, 1951, to February 1, 1980. It was created by Roy Winsor, whose previous creation Search for Tomorrow premiered three weeks before Love of Life; he created The Secret Storm two and a half years later.
General Hospital is an American daytime television soap opera. It is listed in Guinness World Records as the longest-running American soap opera in production, and the second in American history after Guiding Light. Concurrently, it is the world's third longest-running scripted drama series in production after British serials The Archers and Coronation Street, as well as the world's second-longest-running televised soap opera still in production. General Hospital premiered on the ABC television network on April 1, 1963. General Hospital is the longest-running serial produced in Hollywood, and the longest-running entertainment program in ABC television history. It holds the record for most Daytime Emmy Awards for Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series, with 14 wins.
Texas is an American daytime soap opera that aired on NBC from August 4, 1980 until December 31, 1982, sponsored and produced by Procter and Gamble Productions at NBC Studios in Brooklyn, New York City. It is a spin-off of Another World, co-created by head writers John William Corrington and Joyce Hooper Corrington, and executive producer of Another World at the time, Paul Rauch. Rauch held the title of executive producer for the parent series and its spin-off until 1981.
Douglas Marland was an American writer, known for his work as the head writer of several soap operas.
How to Survive a Marriage is an American soap opera that aired on the NBC television network from January 7, 1974 to April 18, 1975. The serial was created by Anne Howard Bailey, with much input from then-NBC Vice President Lin Bolen. The show's working title was From This Moment and was an in-house NBC production.
Ryan's Hope is an American soap opera created by Claire Labine and Paul Avila Mayer, airing for 13 years on ABC from July 7, 1975, to January 13, 1989. It revolves around the trials and tribulations within a large Irish-American family in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City.
The 1975–76 daytime network television schedule for the three major English-language commercial broadcast networks in the United States covers the weekday and weekend daytime hours from September 1975 to August 1976.
"Love in the Afternoon" was an advertising campaign used by ABC to market its soap operas in the form of newspaper advertisements and television commercials. Focusing on the highly tormented love lives of its main characters, "Love in the Afternoon" was the chief ad campaign for ABC's afternoon lineup from 1975 until 1985. The flagship program for the campaign was General Hospital.
The 1995–96 daytime network television schedule for the six major English-language commercial broadcast networks in the United States covers the weekday and weekend daytime hours from September 1995 to August 1996. The schedule is followed by a list per network of returning series, new series, and series canceled after the 1995–96 season.
Jean Dadario Burke is an American television soap opera producer and director, most notably of the daytime television show All My Children. During her career in daytime television, Burke won many Daytime Emmy Awards, primarily as executive producer for that show. She is credited with saving many characters from the canceled soap opera Loving and transporting them to its sequel show, The City, by radically reworking the storyline, changing the setting to New York City, eliminating half of the cast, and bringing in the star Morgan Fairchild. She was part of a team that ultimately took the characters of Loving away from a "stilted upper-middle-class" orientation. She was instrumental in the careers of many daytime actors, including Josh Duhamel.
