According to Albert Moran, one of the defining features that make a television program a soap opera is "that form of television that works with a continuous open narrative. Eachepisode ends with a promise that thestoryline is to be continued in another episode".[10] In 2012,Los Angeles Times columnist Robert Lloyd wrote of daily dramas:
Although melodramatically eventful, soap operas such as this also have a luxury of space that makes them seem more naturalistic; indeed, the economics of the form demand long scenes, and conversations that a 22-episodes-per-season weekly series might dispense with in half a dozen lines of dialogue may be drawn out, as here, for pages. You spend more time even with the minor characters; the apparent villains grow less apparently villainous.[11]
Soap opera storylines run concurrently, intersect and lead into further developments. An individual episode of a soap opera will generally switch between several concurrentnarrative threads that may at times interconnect and affect one another or may run entirely independently of each other. Episodes may feature some of the show's storylines, but not always all of them. Especially in daytime serials and those that are broadcast each weekday, there is some rotation of both storyline and actors, so any given storyline or actor will appear in some but usually not all of a week's worth of episodes. Soap operas seldom conclude all their storylines at the same time. When one story thread ends, there are several others at differingstages of development. Soap opera episodes typically end on some sort ofcliffhanger, as does theseason finale (if a soap incorporates a break between seasons), the tension only to be resolved when the show returns for the start of a new yearly broadcast.
Evening soap operas and those that air at a rate of one episode per week are more likely to feature the entire cast in each episode and present all storylines. Evening soap operas and serials that run for only part of the year tend to bring things to a dramatic end-of-season cliffhanger.
In 1976,Time magazine describedAmerican daytime television as "TV's richest market"[12], noting the loyalty of the soap opera fan base and the expansion of several half-hour series into hour-long broadcasts to maximise advertising revenues. At that time, manyprime time series lost money, while daytime serials earned profits several times more than their production costs.[13] The issue's cover notably featured its first daytime soap stars,Bill Hayes andSusan Seaforth Hayes ofDays of Our Lives,[14][15] a married couple whose onscreen and real-life romance was widely covered by both the soap opera magazines and the mainstream press at large.[16]
The first program generally considered to be a "soap opera" or daytime serial by scholars of the genre isPainted Dreams, written by and starringIrna Phillips,[17][18] which premiered onWGN radio Chicago, on October 20, 1930.[18] It was regularly broadcast in a daytime time slot, where most listeners would be housewives; thus, the shows were aimed at – and consumed by – a predominantly female audience.[5]Clara, Lu, 'n Em would become the firstnetwork radio serial of the type when it aired on theNBC Blue Network at 10:30 p.m.Eastern Time on January 27, 1931.[19] Although it did not make the move until February 15, 1932,Clara, Lu 'n Em would become the first network serial of the type to move to a weekday daily timeslot; as such, it also became the first network daytime serial.[19]
The main characteristics that define soap operas are "an emphasis on family life, personal relationships, sexual dramas, emotional and moral conflicts; some coverage of topical issues; set in familiar domestic interiors with only occasional excursions into new locations".[20] Fitting in with these characteristics, most soap operas follow the lives of a group of characters who live or work in a particular place, or focus on a large extended family. The storylines follow the day-to-day activities and personal relationships of these characters. "Soap narratives, like those of film melodramas, are marked by whatSteve Neale has described as 'chance happenings, coincidences, missed meetings, sudden conversions, last-minute rescues and revelations,deus ex machina endings.'"[21][22] These elements may be found across the gamut of soap operas, fromEastEnders toDallas.[21]
In many soap operas, in particular daytime serials in the United States, the characters are frequently attractive, seductive, glamorous and wealthy. Soap operas from the United Kingdom and Australia tend to focus on more everyday characters and situations and are frequently set in working-class environments.[23] Many of the soaps produced in those two countries exploresocial realist storylines such as family discord, marriage breakdown or financial problems. Both British and Australian soap operas feature comedic elements, often affectionate comic stereotypes such as the gossip or the grumpy old man, presented as a comic foil to the emotional turmoil that surrounds them. This diverges from American soap operas where such comedy is rare.[10] British soap operas frequently make a claim to presenting "reality" or purport to have a "realistic" style.[24] British soap operas also frequently foreground their geographic location as a key defining feature of the show while depicting and capitalising on the exotic appeal of the stereotypes connected to the location. As examples,EastEnders focuses on the tough and grim life in the East End of London;Coronation Street and its characters exhibit the stereotypical characteristic of "northern straight talking".[25]
If we want to blend an actor back into a show, there's always a way. You can generally find a way to twist and manipulate something. You rarely see a dead body, but hey, even if you do, he or she can always come back to play the evil identical twin.
Romance, secret relationships, extramarital affairs, and genuine hate have been the basis for many soap opera storylines. In American daytime serials, the most popular soap opera characters, and the most popular storylines, often involved a romance of the sort presented in paperbackromance novels. Soap opera storylines weave intricate, convoluted and sometimes confusing tales of characters who have affairs, meet mysterious strangers and fall in love, and who commit adultery, all of which keeps audiences hooked on the unfolding story. Crimes such as kidnapping, assault (sometimes sexual), and even murder may go unpunished if the perpetrator is to be retained in the ongoing story.
Australian and British soap operas also feature a significant proportion of romance storylines. In Russia, most popular serials explore the "romantic quality" of criminal and/oroligarch life.
In soap opera storylines, previously unknown children, siblings andtwins (including theevil variety) of established characters often emerge to upset and reinvigorate the set of relationships examined by the series. Unexpected calamities disrupt weddings, childbirths, and other major life events with unusual frequency.
Stunts and complex physical action are largely absent, especially from daytime serials. Such story events often take place off-screen and are referred to in dialogue instead of being shown. This is because stunts or action scenes are difficult to adequately depict without complex movements, multiple takes, and post-production editing. When episodes were broadcast live, post-production work was impossible. Though all serials have long switched to being taped, extensive post-production work and multiple takes, while possible, are not feasible due to the tight taping schedules and low budgets.
The firstdaytime TV soap opera in theUnited States wasThese Are My Children in 1949, though earlier melodramas had aired in the evenings as once-a-week programs. Soap operas quickly became a fixture of American daytime television in the early 1950s, joined bygame shows,sitcomreruns and talk shows.
I think people like stories that continue so they can relate to these people. They become like a family, and the viewer becomes emotionally involved. There seem to be two attitudes by viewers. One, that the stories are similar to what happened to them in real life, or two, thank goodness that isn't me.
— H. Wesley Kenney
Many long-running American soap operas established particular environments for their stories.The Doctors andGeneral Hospital, in the beginning, told stories almost exclusively from inside the confines of a hospital.As the World Turns dealt heavily with Chris Hughes' law practice and the travails of his wifeNancy who, tired of being "the loyal housewife" in the 1970s, became one of the first older women on the American serials to enter the workforce.Guiding Light dealt with Bert Bauer (Charita Bauer) and her alcoholic husband Bill, and their endless marital troubles. When Bert's status shifted to caring mother and town matriarch, her children's marital troubles were showcased.Search for Tomorrow mostly told its story through the eyes ofJoanne Gardner (Mary Stuart). Even when stories revolved around other characters, Joanne was frequently a key player in their storylines.Days of Our Lives initially focused on Dr. Tom Horton and his steadfast wife Alice. The show later branched out to focus more on their five children.The Edge of Night featured as its central character Mike Karr, a police detective (later an attorney), and largely dealt with organized crime.The Young and the Restless first focused on two families, the prosperous Brooks family with four daughters, and the working-class Foster family of a single working mother with three children. Its storylines explored realistic problems including cancer, mental illness, poverty, and infidelity.
In contrast,Dark Shadows (1966–1971),Port Charles (1997–2003) andPassions (1999–2008) featured supernatural characters and dealt withfantasy andhorror storylines. Their characters included vampires, witches, ghosts, goblins, and angels.
The American soap operaGuiding Light (originally titledThe Guiding Light until 1975) started as a radio drama in January 1937 and subsequently began transitioning to television in June 1952; the television and radio editions of the serial continued to broadcast concurrently until the latter version ended production in 1956. With the exception of several years in the late 1940s, during which creatorIrna Phillips was involved in a dispute withProcter & Gamble,Guiding Light was heard or seen nearly every weekday from 1937 to 2009, making it the longest story ever told in a broadcast medium.
Originally, serials were broadcast as 15-minute installments each weekday in daytime slots. In 1956,As the World Turns andThe Edge of Night, both produced byProcter & Gamble Productions, debuted as the first half-hour soap operas on theCBS television network. All soap operas broadcast half-hour episodes by the end of the 1960s. With increased popularity in the 1970s, most soap operas had expanded to an hour in length by the end of the decade (Another World even expanded to 90 minutes for a short time from 1979 to 1980). More than half of the serials had expanded to one-hour episodes by 1980. As of 2025, four of the five American serials air one-hour episodes each weekday; onlyThe Bold and the Beautiful airs 30-minute episodes.
Soap operas were broadcast live from the studio, creating what many at the time regarded as a feeling similar to that of a stage play. As nearly all soap operas were originated at that time fromNew York City, a number of soap actors were also accomplished stage actors who performed live theater during breaks from their soap roles. In the 1960s and 1970s, new serials such asGeneral Hospital,Days of Our Lives, andThe Young and the Restless were produced inLos Angeles. Their success made the West Coast a viable alternative to New York-produced soap operas, which were becoming more costly to perform. By the early 1970s, nearly all soap operas had transitioned to being taped.As the World Turns andThe Edge of Night were the last to make the switch, in 1975.
Port Charles used the practice of running 13-week "story arcs," in which the main events of the arc are played out and wrapped up over the 13 weeks, although some storylines did continue over more than one arc. According to the 2006 Preview issue ofSoap Opera Digest, it was briefly discussed that allABC shows might dotelenovela arcs, but this was rejected.
Though American daytime soap operas are not generallyrerun by their networks, occasionally they are rebroadcast elsewhere; CBS and ABC have made exceptions to this, airing older episodes (either those aired earlier in the current season or those aired years prior) on major holidays when special event programming is not scheduled or because of last-minute deferrals of scheduled episodes to the following day because ofbreaking news coverage. (Temporary production stoppages caused by theCOVID-19 pandemic similarly resulted in CBS and ABC airing older reruns ofThe Young and the Restless,The Bold and the Beautiful andGeneral Hospital during the Spring and Summer of 2020 in order to ration first-run episodes and, eventually, to fill airtime after the programs ran out of new episodes to broadcast;Days of Our Lives, which produces its episodes roughly eight months ahead of their initial broadcast, did not resort to airing older episodes during this time as it had a larger first-run episode backlog.) Early episodes ofDark Shadows were rerun onPBS member stations in the early 1970s after the show's cancellation, and the entire series (except for a single missing episode) was rerun on theSci-Fi Channel in the 1990s. AfterThe Edge of Night's 1984 cancellation, reruns of the show's final five years were shown late nights onUSA Network from 1985 to 1989. On January 20, 2000, adigital cable andsatellite network dedicated to the genre,Soapnet, began re-airing soaps that aired on ABC,NBC and CBS.
Newer broadcast networks launched since the late 1980s (such asFox) andcable television networks have largely eschewed offering soap operas on their daytime schedules, instead runningsyndicated programming and reruns. No cable television outlet has produced its own daytime serial, althoughDirecTV'sThe 101 Network took over existing serialPassions, continuing production for one season; whileTBS andCBN Cable Network respectively aired their own soap operas,The Catlins (a primetime soap that utilized the daily episode format of its daytime counterparts) andAnother Life (a soap that combined standard serial drama with religious overtones), during the 1980s. Fox, thefourth "major network", carried a short-lived daytime soapTribes in 1990. Yet, other than this and a couple of pilot attempts, Fox mainly stayed away from daytime soaps, and has not attempted them since theirascension to major-network status in 1994 (it did later attempt a series of daily prime time soaps from 2006 to 2007, which aired on newly created sister networkMyNetworkTV, but the experiment was largely a failure after disappointing ratings).
Due to the masses of episodes produced for a series, release of soap operas to DVD (a popular venue for distribution of current and vintage television series) is considered impractical. With the exception of occasional specials, daytime soap operas are notable by their absence from DVD release schedules (an exception being the supernatural soap opera,Dark Shadows, which did receive an essentially complete release on both VHS and DVD; the single lost episode #1219 is reconstructed by means of an off-the-air audio recording, still images, and recap material from adjacent episodes).
Soap opera performers in the United States are typically divided into two main groups: primary characters (sometimes referred to as "contract players" – as their portrayers signed contracts of employment – or leading characters) and secondary characters (sometimes referred to asrecurring characters). These two groups of characters make up the vast majority of the people who appear on any given soap. There are also characters who appear only for a short time as dictated by a specific storyline, and even characters who may only get a first name and no fleshed-out character history with little dialogue (these are sometimes referred to as "under-5s" since they receive under five lines of dialogue in each episode).
Due to the longevity of these shows, it is not uncommon for a single character to be played by multiple actors. The key character ofMike Karr onThe Edge of Night was played by three actors.
Conversely, several actors have remained playing the same character for many years, or decades even.Helen Wagner played Hughes family matriarchNancy Hughes on American soapAs the World Turns from its April 2, 1956, debut through her death in May 2010. She is listed in theGuinness Book of World Records[28] as the actor with the longest uninterrupted performance in a single role. A number of performers played roles for 20 years or longer, occasionally on more than one show.Rachel Ames playedAudrey Hardy on bothGeneral Hospital andPort Charles from 1964 until 2007 and returned in 2009.Susan Lucci playedErica Kane inAll My Children from the show's debut in January 1970 until it ended its network television run on ABC on September 23, 2011.Erika Slezak playedVictoria Lord #3 onOne Life to Live from 1971 until the show ended its network television run on ABC on January 13, 2012, and resumed the role in its short-lived online revival on April 29, 2013.[29]
For several decades, most daytime soap operas concentrated on family and marital discord, legal drama and romance. The action rarely left interior settings, and many shows were set in fictional, medium-sizedMidwestern towns.
Social issue storylines were typically verboten when soaps were starting, due to heavy network-imposed censorship at that time, but writer and producerAgnes Nixon introduced these storylines slowly but surely, first in 1962 when the matriarch ofThe Guiding Light, Bert Bauer, developeduterine cancer[30] (as the actress,Charita Bauer, had been diagnosed with the same illness in real life). The storyline encouraged many women to getpap smears[30] and the CBS mailroom in New York City received a then-record amount of fan mail wishing Bauer (both Bert and Charita) well. Nixon would go on to tell many socially relevant storylines on her soapsOne Life to Live andAll My Children in the late 1960s and into the 1970s.
Exterior shots were slowly incorporated into the seriesThe Edge of Night andDark Shadows. Unlike many earlier serials that were set in fictional towns,The Best of Everything andRyan's Hope were set in a real-world location, New York City.
The first exotic location shoot was made byAll My Children, toSt. Croix in 1978. Many other soap operas planned lavish storylines after the success of theAll My Children shoot. Soap operasAnother World andGuiding Light both went to St. Croix in 1980, the former show culminating a long-running storyline between popular characters Mac, Rachel and Janice, and the latter to serve as an exotic setting forAlan Spaulding andRita Bauer's torrid affair.Search for Tomorrow taped for two weeks inHong Kong in 1981. Later that year, some of the cast and crew ventured toJamaica to tape a love consummation storyline between the characters of Garth and Kathy.
During the 1980s, perhaps as a reaction to the evening drama series that were gaining high ratings, daytime serials began to incorporate action and adventure storylines, more big-business intrigue, and an increased emphasis on youthful romance.
One of the most popular couples wasLuke Spencer and Laura Webber onGeneral Hospital. Luke and Laura helped to attract both male and female fans. Even actressElizabeth Taylor was a fan and at her own request was given a guest role in Luke and Laura's wedding episode. Luke and Laura's popularity led to other soap producers striving to reproduce this success by attempting to create supercouples of their own.
With increasingly bizarre action storylines coming into vogue, Luke and Laura saved the world from being frozen, brought a mobster down by finding his black book in a left-handed boy statue, and helped a princess find her Aztec treasure inMexico. Other soap operas attempted similar adventure storylines, often featuring footage shot on location – frequently in exotic locales.
During the 1990s, the mob, action and adventure stories fell out of favor with producers, due to generally declining ratings for daytime soap operas at the time. With the resultant budget cuts, soap operas were no longer able to go on expensive location shoots overseas as they were able to do in the 1980s. During that decade, soap operas increasingly focused on younger characters andsocial issues, such asErica Kane's drug addiction onAll My Children, the re-emergence ofViki Lord'sdissociative identity disorder onOne Life to Live, andStuart Chandler dealing with his wife Cindy dying ofAIDS onAll My Children. Other social issues includedcancer,rape,abortion andracism.
Several shows during the 1990s and 2000s incorporated supernatural and science fiction elements into their storylines in an attempt to boost their ratings. One of the main characters on the earlier soap operaDark Shadows wasBarnabas Collins, a vampire, andOne Life to Live featured an angel named Virgil. Both shows featured characters who traveled to and from the past. In 1995,Days of our Lives featured a storyline in which fan favorite characterMarlena Evans was possessed by the devil (which was revisited in 2021 with the devil possessing several of her relatives as well), and in 1998,Guiding Light featured a cloning storyline involving legacy characterReva Shayne.
Modern American daytime soap operas largely stay true to the original soap opera format. The duration and format of storylines and the visual grammar employed by American daytime serials set them apart from soap operas in other countries and from evening soap operas. Stylistically, British and Australian soap operas, which are usually produced for early evening timeslots, fall somewhere in between American daytime and evening soap operas. Similar to American daytime soap operas, British and Australian serials are shot on videotape, and the cast and storylines are rotated across the week's episodes so that each cast member will appear in some but not all episodes. British and Australian soap operas move through storylines at a faster rate than daytime serials, making them closer to American evening soap operas in this regard.
American daytime soap operas feature stylistic elements that set them apart from other shows:
A construct unique to American daytime serials is the format where the action will cut between various conversations, returning to each at the precise moment it was left. This is the most significant distinction between American daytime soap operas and other forms of American television drama, which generally allow for narrative time to pass, off-screen, between the scenes depicted.[10] On occasion, a character or characters involved a conversation earlier in that act may appear in a different setting later in the same act.
In American daytime soap operas, scenes often end with apregnant pause and a close-up on the character. There will be no dialogue for several seconds, while the music builds before cutting to a commercial or a new scene. This kind of segue is referred to in the industry as a "tag".
The traditionalthree-point lighting set-up routinely used infilmmaking andtelevision production is also used on daytime soap operas, sometimes with accentuatedback lighting to lift actors out of the background. This is useful in programs like soap operas, which are shot on videotape in small interior sets. The backlight is frequently more subtle on filmed productions shot on location and in larger sets.
Domestic interiors are often furnished with stained wood wall panels and furniture, and items of brown leather furniture. This is to give a sumptuous and luxurious look suggesting the wealth of the characters. Daytime serials often foreground other sumptuous elements of set decoration; presenting a "mid-shot of characters viewed through a frame of lavish floral displays, glittering crystal decanters or gleaming antique furniture".[20]
Few American daytime soap operas routinely feature location or exterior-shot footage (Guiding Light began shooting many of its scenes outdoors in its final two seasons). Often an outdoor locale is recreated in the studio, although in recent years,The Bold and the Beautiful andGeneral Hospital have taped certain exterior scenes within the grounds of their main soundstages. Australian and British daily soap operas invariably feature a certain amount of exterior-shot footage in every episode. This is usually shot in the same location and often on a purpose-built set, with new exterior locations for particular events.
The visual quality of a soap opera is usually lower than prime time American television drama series due to the lower budgets and quicker production times. This is also because soap operas are recorded on videotape using amulti-camera setup, unlike prime time productions that are usually shot on film and frequently use thesingle-camera shooting style. Because of the lower resolution of video images, and also because of the emotional situations portrayed in soap operas, daytime serials make heavy use ofclose-up shots. Programs in the United States did not make the full conversion tohigh-definition broadcasting until September 2011, whenThe Bold and the Beautiful became the last soap to convert to the format;One Life to Live was an exception to this, as it continued to be produced and broadcast instandard definition – albeit in the16:9aspect ratio – until the end of its run on ABC in January 2012.Beyond the Gates, being the first daytime soap opera to debut in the modern high-definition era, broadcast in HD from its premiere in February 2025.
Soap operas have idiosyncraticblocking techniques. In one common situation, a romantically involved couple starts a conversation face to face, then one character will turn 180° and face away from the other character while the conversation continues. This allows both characters to appear together in a single shot, and with both of them facing the audience. This is unrealistic in real life and is not frequently seen in film or on television outside American daytime serials, but it is an accepted soap opera convention, sometimes referred to as a "two shot West".[31]
Because of the escapist tone of the genre and due to the large number of cast members employed by each program (usually totaling around 30 to 35 actors for hour-long soaps, and 15 to 25 for those lasting a half hour), daytime soap operas have traditionally listed all contract cast members (as well as recurring and guest actors) during theclosing credits, instead of theopening title sequence. Until the 1990s, these series listed only a few of the principal actors at the end of the episode in certain episodes airing on Monday through Thursdays. Because of the aforementioned reasons, an extended credit sequence featuring a complete list of the show's cast members, listed alongside the characters they portray, typically airs at least once per week (usually on the Friday show; although since the 2000s, most soap operas, withGeneral Hospital as one of the few exceptions, have randomized the day the cast list is shown).The Young and the Restless became the first American daytime soap to include the names of its contract actors in the opening credits in 1999 (although due to the large number of actors on contract with the show at one time, it utilizes different versions of the title sequence with a randomized list of about nine actors, increased from the seven listed in each version until 2017).The Bold and the Beautiful listed its entire main cast (as well as some actors appearing on a recurring basis) from 2004 to 2017, withGeneral Hospital following suit from 2010 to 2013;Beyond the Gates, beginning with its 2025 premiere, uses a similar alternating title sequence structure asThe Young and the Restless, although uniform top billing is given to a handful of its primary lead actors. (As of 2025,[update]The Young and the Restless andBeyond the Gates are the only American daytime soap operas that list the names of their main cast during both their opening titlesand extended closing credit sequence.)[32]
Soap opera ratings have significantly fallen in the U.S. since the 2000s. Experts believe that this is due to their failure to attract younger demographics, the tendency of modern audiences to have shorterattention spans, and the rise of reality television in the 1990s. Nevertheless, Internet streaming services do offer materials in the serial format, a legacy of soap operas.[33] However, the availability of such on-demand platforms saw to it that soap operas would never again be the cultural phenomenon they were in the twentieth century, especially among the younger generations, not least because cliffhangers could no longer capture the imagination of the viewers the way they did in the past, when television shows were available as scheduled, not on demand.[34]
From September 2013 to February 2025, only four daytime soap operas –General Hospital,Days of Our Lives,The Young and the Restless andThe Bold and the Beautiful – were still in production, down from a total of 12 soaps broadcast during the 1990–91 season and a high of 19 in the 1969–70 season; of those, three aired between two broadcast networks and one on streaming. This period marked the first time since 1953 that there were only four soap operas airing onbroadcast television.[35]The Young and the Restless, which has been the highest-rated soap opera since 1988, had fewer than 5 million daily viewers as of February 2012, a number exceeded by several non-scripted programs such asJudge Judy.[36] Circulations of soap operamagazines have decreased and most have even ceased publication;Soap Opera Digest, the last remaining weekly print magazine devoted to the genre, switched to a quarterly "special issue" publication in October 2023, although it continues to publish daily articles and episode summaries online.[37][38] Soapnet, which largely aired soap opera reruns, began to be phased out in 2012 for the children's cable channelDisney Jr., and fully ceased operations the following year.[39] TheDaytime Emmy Awards, which honor soap operas and other daytime shows, moved from prime time network television to smaller cable channels in 2012, then failed to get any TV broadcast at all in 2014, 2016, and 2017;[40] the ceremony would eventually return to broadcast television in2020.[41]
Several of the most established soaps on American television ended between 2009 and 2012. The longest-running drama in television and radio history,Guiding Light, barely reached 2.1 million daily viewers in 2009 and ended on September 18 of that year, after a 72-year run (including radio).[42]As the World Turns aired its final episode on September 17, 2010, after a 54-year run. Until it ventured back into the genre in 2024,As the World Turns was the last of 20 soap operas produced by Procter & Gamble, the soap and consumer goods company from which the genre got its name.[43]As the World Turns andGuiding Light were also among the last of the soaps that originated from New York City.All My Children, another New York–based soap, moved its production out to Los Angeles in an effort to reduce costs and raise sagging ratings; however, both it andOne Life to Live, each with a 40-year-plus run, were cancelled in 2011.All My Children aired its network finale in September 2011, withOne Life to Live following suit in January 2012.[44] BothAll My Children andOne Life to Live were briefly revived online in 2013, before being cancelled again amid creative and intellectual property issues between ABC andProspect Park (the production company that acquired rights for both serials in a sub-licensing deal with ABC parentDisney), ending in September that same year.[45] In 2019, production ofDays of Our Lives was put on "indefinite hiatus" and all of the cast's contracts were terminated, raising concerns within soap publications that cancellation would ensue,[46] though the show was later renewed through September 2021.[47] In 2022, NBC announced thatDays of Our Lives would be moved exclusively to its streaming service,Peacock, making NBC the first of the Big Three networks not to air any daytime soap operas.[48]
In March 2024,CBS Studios andNAACP Ventures, in partnership withP&G Studios announced that a new soap opera forCBStentatively titledThe Gates, which would be the first soap opera sinceGenerations to feature a primarilyAfrican American cast, was in development.[49] On April 15, 2024, CBS orderedThe Gates (later retitledBeyond the Gates) to series; it premiered on February 24, 2025,[50] taking the timeslot previously occupied by panel talk showThe Talk (the timeslot successor ofAs the World Turns, which would end its 15-season run on December 20, 2024[51]), making it the first new daytime soap opera to premiere on a major broadcast network since NBC'sPassions in 1999.[52]
New generations of potential viewers were not raised watching soap operas with their mothers, leaving the shows' long and complex storylines foreign to younger audiences. As viewers age, ratings continue to drop among young adult women, the demographic group for which soap opera advertisers pay the most.[53] Those who might watch in workplace breakrooms are not counted, asNielsen does not track television viewing outside the home. The rise of cable and theInternet has also provided new sources of entertainment during the day.[53] The genre's decline has additionally been attributed toreality television displacing soap operas as TV's dominant form of melodrama.[54] An early term for the reality TV genre wasdocu-soap.[55] A precursor to reality TV, the televised 1994–95O. J. Simpson murder case, both preempted and competed with an entire season of soaps, transforming viewing habits and leaving soap operas with 10 percent fewer viewers after the trial ended.[56][57]
Daytime programming alternatives such astalk shows,game shows, andcourt shows cost up to 50% less to produce than scripted dramas,[58] making those formats more profitable and attractive to networks, even if they receive the same or slightly lower ratings than soap operas. A network may even prefer to return a time slot to its local stations to keeping a soap opera with disappointing ratings on the air, as was the case withSunset Beach andPort Charles. Compounding the financial pressure on scripted programming in the 2007–2010 period was a decline in advertising during theGreat Recession, which led shows to reduce their budgets and cast sizes.[59] In addition to these external factors, a litany of production decisions has been cited by soap opera fans as contributing to the genre's decline, such as clichéd plots, a lack of diversity that narrowed audience appeal, and the elimination of core families.[60]
Serials produced for prime-time slots have also found success. The first prime time soap opera wasFaraway Hill (1946), which aired on October 2, 1946, on the now-defunctDuMont Television Network.[61]Faraway Hill ran for 12 episodes and was primarily broadcast live, interspersed with short pre-recorded film clips and still photos to remind the audience of the previous week's episode.
The first long-running prime time soap opera wasPeyton Place (1964–1969) on ABC. It was based in part on theeponymous 1957 film (which, in turn, was based on the 1956novel).
The popularity ofPeyton Place prompted the CBS network to spin off popularAs the World Turns characterLisa Miller into her own evening soap opera,Our Private World (originally titled "The Woman Lisa" in its planning stages).Our Private World was broadcast from May to September 1965. The character of Lisa (and her portrayerEileen Fulton) returned toAs The World Turns after the series ended.
The structure ofPeyton Place, with its episodic plots and long-running story arcs, set the mold for the prime time serials of the 1980s, when the format reached its pinnacle.
The successful prime time serials of the 1980s includedDallas, its spin-offKnots Landing,Dynasty, andFalcon Crest. These shows frequently dealt with wealthy families, and their personal and big-business travails. Common characteristics were sumptuous sets and costumes, complex storylines examining business schemes and intrigue, and spectacular disaster cliffhanger situations. Each of these series featured a wealthy, domineering,promiscuous, and passionateantagonist as a key character in the storyline, respectively,J. R. Ewing (Larry Hagman),Abby Cunningham (Donna Mills),Alexis Colby (Joan Collins), andAngela Channing (Jane Wyman). These villainous schemers became immensely popular figures that audiences "loved to hate".
Unlike daytime serials, which are shot on video in a studio using the multi-camera setup, these evening series were shot on film using asingle camera setup, and featured substantial location-shot footage, often in picturesque locales.Dallas, its spin-offKnots Landing, andFalcon Crest all initially featured episodes with self-contained stories and specific guest stars who appeared in just that episode. Each story was completely resolved by the end of the episode, and there were no end-of-episode cliffhangers. After the first couple of seasons, all three shows changed their story format to that of a pure soap opera, with interwoven ongoing narratives that ran over several episodes.Dynasty featured this format throughout its run.
The soap opera's distinctive open plot structure and complex continuity were increasingly incorporated into American prime time television programs of the period. The first significant drama series to do this wasHill Street Blues. This series, produced bySteven Bochco, featured many elements borrowed from soap operas, such as anensemble cast, multi-episode storylines, and extensive character development throughout the series. It and the laterCagney & Lacey overlaid the police series formula with ongoing narratives exploring the personal lives and interpersonal relationships of the regular characters.[62] The success of these series prompted other drama series, such asSt. Elsewhere and situation comedy series, to incorporate serialized stories and story structure to varying degrees.
On June 13, 2012,Dallas, a continuation of the1978 original series premiered on the cable network,TNT. The revived series, which was canceled after three seasons in 2014, delivered solid ratings for the channel, only losing viewership after the show's most established star,Larry Hagman, died midway through the series. In 2012,Nick at Nite debuted a primetime soap opera,Hollywood Heights, which aired episodes five nights a week (on Monday through Fridays) in a manner similar to a daytime soap opera, instead of the once-a-week episode output common of other prime time soaps. The series, which was an adaptation of the Mexican telenovelaAlcanzar una estrella, suffered from low ratings (generally receiving less than 1 million viewers) and was later moved to sister cable channelTeenNick halfway through its run toburn off the remaining episodes.
In 2015, Fox debutedEmpire, a prime time musical serial centering on the power struggle between family members within the titular recording company. Created byLee Daniels andDanny Strong and led byOscar nomineesTerrence Howard andTaraji P. Henson, the drama premiered to high ratings. The show is strongly influenced by other works such asWilliam Shakespeare'sKing Lear,James Goldman'sThe Lion in Winter and the 1980s soap operaDynasty. Also in 2015,E! introducedThe Royals, a series following the life and drama of a fictional English Royal family, which was also inspired byDynasty (even featuringJoan Collins as the Queen's mother). In addition, ABC debuted a prime time soap operaBlood & Oil, following a young couple looking to make money off the modern-dayWilliston oil boom, premiering on September 27, 2015.
Thetelenovela, a shorter-form format of serial melodrama, shares some thematic and especially stylistic similarity to the soap opera, enough that the colloquialismSpanish soap opera has arisen to describe the format. The chief difference between the two is length of series; while soap operas usually have indefinite runs, telenovelas typically have a centralstory arc with a prescribed ending within a year or two of the show's launch, requiring more concise storytelling.
Spanish-language networks, chieflyUnivision andTelemundo, have found success airing telenovelas for the growing U.S. Hispanic market. Both produced and imported Latin American dramas (as well as imported Turkish dramas since the 2020s) are popular features of the networks' daytime and primetime lineups, sometimes beating English-language networks in the ratings.[63][64]
Someweb series are soap operas, such asDegrassi: In Session orVenice: The Series. In 2013, production companyProspect Park revivedAll My Children andOne Life to Live for the web, retaining original creatorAgnes Nixon as a consultant and keeping many of the same actors (Prospect Park purchased the rights to both series months after their cancellations by ABC in 2011, although it initially suspended plans to relaunch the soaps later that same year due to issues receiving approval from acting and production unions).[65] Each show initially produced four half-hour episodes a week, but quickly cut back to two half-hour episodes each.[66] In the midst of (though not directly related to) a lawsuit between Prospect Park and ABC, the experiment ended that same year, with both shows being canceled again.[45]
Soap operas in the UK began on the radio and were consequently associated with the BBC. It had resisted soaps as antithetical to its quality image, but began broadcastingFront Line Family in April 1941 on itsNorth American shortwave service to encourage American intervention on Britain's behalf inWorld War II.[67] The BBC continues to broadcast the world's longest-running radio soap,The Archers, which first aired in May 1950, and has been running nationally since 1951.[8] It is currently broadcast onBBC Radio 4 and continues to attract over five million listeners, or roughly 25% of the radio listening population of the UK at that time of the evening.
In the UK, soap operas were one of the most popular genres, with most being broadcast during prime time and often the most watched TV programmes each week. Soap operas have declined in popularity in recent years as viewers move away from broadcast TV to streaming.[68] Most UK soap operas focus on everyday, working-class communities, influenced by the conventions of thekitchen sink drama.[69] The most popular soap operas in the United Kingdom areCoronation Street,EastEnders,Emmerdale,Hollyoaks, and the Australian producedNeighbours andHome and Away. The first three of these were consistently among the highest-rated shows on British television.[70] Such is the magnitude of the popularity of the soap genre in the UK that all television serials in the country are reputedly enjoyed by members of theBritish royal family.King Charles III himself made cameo appearances in two of the UK's biggest serials during his time asPrince of Wales:Coronation Street andEastEnders, the latter alongside his wifeQueen Camilla (thenDuchess of Cornwall), in 2000 and 2022 respectively. Major events inBritish culture are often mentioned in the storyline, such as theHome Nations' participation at theWorld Cup and the death ofPrincess Diana.[71] Since 1999,The British Soap Awards has been televised onITV.[72]
A scene fromEastEnders on Christmas Day 1986, watched by 30.15 million viewers. The story, in whichDen Watts (Leslie Grantham) served his wifeAngie (Anita Dobson) withdivorce papers, was the highest-rated soap episode in British history, and the highest-rated program in the UK during the 1980s. Only the 1966 World Cup Final and the funeral of Princess Diana rank higher in the all time ratings.[70]
The 1986Christmas Day episode ofEastEnders is often referred to as the highest-rated UK soap opera episode ever, with 30.15 million viewers (more than half the population at the time).[70] The figure of 30.15 million was actually a combination of the original broadcast, which had just over 19 million viewers, and the Sunday omnibus edition with 10 million viewers. The combined 30.15 million audience figure makes the aforementioned Christmas Day 1986 episode ofEastEnders the highest-rated single-channel broadcast in the history of UK television. Overall it ranks third behind the1966 FIFA World Cup Final (32.3 million viewers) andPrincess Diana's funeral in 1997 (32.1 million viewers) which were transmitted on bothBBC One andITV.[70]
An early television serial wasThe Grove Family on the BBC, which produced 148 episodes from 1954 to 1957. The programme was broadcast live, and only a handful of recordings were retained in the archives. The UK's first twice-weekly serial was ITV'sEmergency - Ward 10, running from 1957 until 1967.
In the 1960s,Coronation Street revolutionised UK television and quickly became a British institution. On 17 September 2010, it became the world's longest-running television soap opera and was listed inGuinness World Records.[9] The BBC also produced several serials:Compact was about the staff of a women's magazine;The Newcomers was about the upheaval caused by a large firm setting up a plant in a small town;United! contained 147 episodes and focused on a football team;199 Park Lane (1965) was an upper class serial, which ran for only 18 episodes. None of these serials came close to making the same impact asCoronation Street. Indeed, most of the 1960s BBC serials were largelywiped.
During the 1960s,Coronation Street's main rival wasCrossroads, a daily serial that began in 1964 and aired on ITV in the early evening.Crossroads was set in aBirmingham motel and, although the program was popular, its purported low technical standard and bad acting were much mocked. By the 1980s, its ratings had begun to decline. Several attempts to revamp the program through cast changes and, later, expanding the focus from the motel to the surrounding community were unsuccessful.Crossroads was cancelled in 1988 (a new version ofCrossroads was later produced, running from 2001 until 2003).
A later rival toCoronation Street was ITV'sEmmerdale Farm (later renamedEmmerdale), which began in 1972 in a daytime slot and was set in ruralYorkshire. Increased viewership resulted inEmmerdale being moved to a prime-time slot in the 1980s.
Pobol y Cwm (People of the Valley) is aWelsh language serial that has been produced by the BBC since October 1974, and is the longest-running television soap opera produced by the broadcaster.Pobol y Cwm was broadcast onBBC Wales television from 1974 to 1982; it was then moved to the Welsh-language television stationS4C when it opened in November 1982. The program was occasionally shown onBBC1 in London during periods of regional optout in the mid- to late 1970s.Pobol y Cwm was briefly shown in the rest of the UK in 1994 onBBC2, with Englishsubtitles; it is consistently the most watched programme each week on S4C.[73]
Daytime soap operas were non-existent until the 1970s because there was virtually no daytime television in the UK. ITV introducedGeneral Hospital, which later moved to a prime time slot. In 1980,Scottish Television debutedTake the High Road, which lasted for over twenty years. Later, daytime slots were filled with an influx of Australian soap operas such asThe Sullivans (aired on ITV from 1977),The Young Doctors (from 1982),Sons and Daughters (from 1983),A Country Practice (from 1982),Richmond Hill (from 1988 to 1989) and eventually,Neighbours was acquired by the BBC in 1986, andHome and Away aired on ITV beginning in 1989. These achieved significant levels of popularity;Neighbours andHome and Away were moved to early-evening slots, helping begin the UK soap opera boom in the late 1980s.
The dayChannel 4 began operations in 1982, it launched its own soap, theLiverpool-basedBrookside, which would redefine soaps over the next decade. The focus ofBrookside was different from earlier soap operas in the UK; it was set in a middle-class new-build cul-de-sac, unlikeCoronation Street andEmmerdale Farm, which were set in established working-class communities. The characters inBrookside were generally either people who had advanced themselves from inner-citycouncil estates, or the upper middle-class who had fallen on hard times. ThoughBrookside was still broadcast in a pre-watershed slot (8.00 p.m. and 8.30 p.m. on weekdays, around 5.00 p.m. for the omnibus on Saturdays), it was more liberal than other soaps of the time: the dialogue regularly included expletives. This stemmed from the overall more liberal policy of the channel during that period. The soap was also heavily politicised.Bobby Grant (Ricky Tomlinson), a militant trade-unionist anti-hero, was the most overtly political character. Storylines were often more sensationalist than on other soaps (throughout the soap's history, there were two armed sieges on the street) and were staged with more violence (particularly,rape) often being featured.
In 1985, the BBC'sEastEnders debuted and became a near instant success with viewers and critics alike, with the first episode attracting over 17 million viewers. The Christmas Day 1986 episode was watched by 30.15 million viewers and contained a scene in whichdivorce papers were served toAngie Watts (Anita Dobson) by her husband,Queen Vic landlordDen (Leslie Grantham).
A notable success in pioneering late-night broadcasting, in October 1984,Yorkshire Television began airing the cult Australian soap operaPrisoner, which ran from 1979 to 1986. It was eventually broadcast on all regions of the UK in differing slots, usually around 23:00 (but never before 22:30 in any region), under the titlePrisoner: Cell Block H. It was probably most popular in the Midlands whereCentral Television consistently broadcast the serial three times a week from 1987 to 1991. Its airing in the UK was staggered, so different regions of the country saw it at a different pace. The program was immensely successful, regularly achieving 10 million viewers when all regions' ratings per episode were added together. Central bowed to fan pressure to repeat the soap, of which the first 95 episodes aired. Then, rival stationChannel 5 also acquired rights to repeat the entire rerun of the program, starting in 1997. All 692 episodes have since been released on DVD in the UK.
In 1992, the BBC madeEldorado to daily alternate withEastEnders. The programme was heavily criticised and only lasted one year. Nevertheless, soap operas gained increasing prominence on UK television schedules. In 1995, Channel 4 premieredHollyoaks, a soap with a youth focus which initially aired only once weekly, but became week-daily in November 2003. When Channel 5 launched in March 1997, it debuted the soap operaFamily Affairs, which was formatted as a week-daily soap, airing Monday through Fridays.
Brookside's premise evolved during the 1990s, phasing out the politicised stories of the 1980s and shifting the emphasis to controversial and sensationalist stories such as child rape,sibling incest, religious cults and drug addiction, including the infamous 'body under the patio' storyline that ran from 1993 to 1995, and gave the serial its highest ratings ever with 9 million viewers.
Coronation Street andBrookside began releasing straight-to-video features. TheCoronation Street releases generally kept the pace and style of conventional programs episodes with the action set in foreign locations. TheBrookside releases were set in the usual locations, but featured stories with adult content not allowed on television pre-watershed, with these releases given '18' certificates.
Emmerdale Farm was renamedEmmerdale in 1989. The series was revamped in 1993 with many changes executed via the crash of a passenger jet that partially destroyed the village and killed several characters. This attracted criticism as it was broadcast near the fifth anniversary of theLockerbie bombing. The storyline drew the soap its highest ever audience of 18 million viewers. The revamp was a success andEmmerdale grew in popularity.
Throughout the 1990s,Brookside,Coronation Street,EastEnders andEmmerdale continued to flourish. Each increased the number of episodes that aired weekly by at least one, further defining soap operas as the leading genre in British television.
Since 2000, new soap operas have continued to be developed. Daytime serialDoctors began in March 2000, precedingNeighbours on BBC One and has since become the BBC's flagship daytime series.[74] The series was cancelled in October 2023, with the final episode screened in November 2024.[75] In 2002, as ratings for the Scottish serialHigh Road (formerlyTake The High Road) continued to decline, BBC Scotland launchedRiver City, which proved popular and effectively replacedHigh Road when it was cancelled in 2003. The long-running serialBrookside ended in November 2003 after 21 years on the air, leavingHollyoaks as Channel 4's flagship serial. In 2023, it was announced that Hollyoaks had been removed from Channel 4's early evening schedule, but would remain onE4 and Channel 4's on demand service and would upload episodes to YouTube.
A new version ofCrossroads featuring a mostly new cast was produced byCarlton Television for ITV in 2001. It did not achieve high ratings and was cancelled in 2003. In 2001, ITV also launched a new early-evening serial entitledNight and Day. This program too attracted low viewership and, after being shifted to a late-night time slot, was cancelled in 2003.
Family Affairs, which was broadcast opposite the racierHollyoaks, never achieved significantly high ratings, leading to several dramatic casting revamps and marked changes in style and even location over its run. By 2004,Family Affairs had a larger fan base and won its first awards, but was cancelled in late 2005. In 2005, formerHollyoaks producerSean O'Connor moved toFamily Affairs, and planned a revamp including a new name and a younger, more glamorous cast, although these plans did not come to fruition due to the show's axing.
In 2008, ITV premieredThe Royal Today, a daily spin-off of popular 1960s-based dramaThe Royal (itself a spin-off ofHeartbeat), which had been running in a primetime slot since 2003. Just days later, soap operaparody programmeEcho Beach premiered alongside its sister show, the comedyMoving Wallpaper. BothEcho Beach andThe Royal Today ended after just one series due to low ratings. Radio soap operaSilver Street debuted on theBBC Asian Network in 2004. Poor ratings and criticism of the programme led to its cancellation in 2010.[76]
British soap operas for many years usually only aired two nights a week. The exception was the originalCrossroads, which began as a week-daily soap opera in the 1960s but later had its number of weekly broadcasts reduced.
In 1989,Coronation Street began airing three times a week. In 1996, it expanded to four episodes a week.
Brookside premiered in 1982 with two episodes a week. In 1990, it expanded to three episodes a week.
EastEnders increased its number of episodes a week in 1994 andEmmerdale did so in 1997.
Family Affairs debuted as a week-long daily soap in 1997, producing five episodes a week for its entire run.
In 2004,Emmerdale began airing six episodes a week.
In a January 2008 overhaul of the ITV network, the Sunday episodes ofCoronation Street andEmmerdale were moved out of their slots.Coronation Street added a second episode on Friday evenings at 8:30 p.m.Emmerdale's Tuesday edition was extended to an hour, putting it in direct competition withEastEnders. In July 2009, the schedules of these serials were changed again. On 23 July 2009,Coronation Street moved from the Wednesday slot it held for 49 years, to Thursday evenings.Emmerdale reverted to running just one 30-minute episode on Tuesday evenings and the other 30-minute installment was moved to Thursday evenings.[77]Coronation Street later returned to a Wednesday slot, to air Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 19:30 and 20:30.Emmerdale airs at 19:00 every weeknight, and 20:00 on Thursdays.
Later,Coronation Street (which began airing two episodes on Monday nights in 2002) produced five episodes a week.
It was announced in June 2016 that starting from late 2017,Coronation Street would air six episodes a week.[78]
Doctors aired five episodes a week until 2022, and four episodes from 2022 onwards, and is the only soap without a weekend omnibus repeat screening.Hollyoaks produces five episodes a week. The importedNeighbours screened as five new episodes a week. As of 2024[update],EastEnders produces four episodes a week.
UK soap operas are shot on videotape in the studio using a multi-camera setup. In their early years,Coronation Street andEmmerdale used16 mm film for footage shot on location. Since the 1980s, UK soap opera have routinely featured scenes shot outdoors in each episode. This footage is shot on videotape on a purpose-built outdoor set that represents the community which the soap focuses on.
As of 2017,[update]Turkey is the second largest exporter of television soap operas. In 2016, Turkish TV exports earned $350 million, making it the second largest drama exporter in the world behind the United States.[79][80] Turkish soap operas have a large following acrossAsia, theBalkans,Eastern Europe,Latin America, theMiddle East, andAfrica.[81][82]
Australia has had quite a number of well-known soap operas, some of which have gained cult followings in the United Kingdom,New Zealand and other countries. The majority of Australian television soap operas are produced for early evening or evening timeslots. They usually produce two or two and a half hours of new material each week, either arranged as four or five half-hour episodes a week, or as two one-hour episodes. Unlike soap operas from the U.S. and UK which run year round, Australian soaps are produced in seasons, and every year, usually in November, the season finale in broadcast, with a new season airing from January or February.
Stylistically, these series most closely resemble British soap operas in that they are nearly always shot on videotape, are mainly recorded in a studio and use amulti-camera setup. The original Australian serials were shot entirely in the studio. During the 1970s occasional filmed inserts were used to incorporate sequences shot outdoors. Outdoor shooting later became commonplace, and starting in the late 1970s, it became standard practice for some on-location footage to be featured in each episode of any Australian soap opera, often to capitalise on the attractiveness and exotic nature of these locations for international audiences.[83] Most Australian soap operas focus on a mixed age range of middle-class characters and will regularly feature a range of locations where the various, disparate characters can meet and interact, such as the café, the surf club, the wine bar or the school.[83]
The genre began in Australia on the radio, as it had in the United States and the United Kingdom. One such radio serial,Big Sister, featured actressThelma Scott in the cast and aired nationally for five years beginning in 1942. Probably the best-known Australian radio serial was the long-running soap operaBlue Hills, which was created byGwen Meredith and ran from 1949 to 1976. With the advent of Australian television in 1956, daytime television serials followed. The first Australian television soap opera wasAutumn Affair (1958) featuring radio personality andBlue Hills starQueenie Ashton making the transition to television. Each episode of this serial ran for 15 minutes and aired each weekday on theSeven Network.Autumn Affair failed to secure a sponsor and ended in 1959 after 156 episodes. It was followed byThe Story of Peter Grey (1961), another Seven Network weekday series aired in a daytime slot in 15-minute installments.The Story of Peter Grey ran for 164 episodes.
The first successful wave of Australian evening television soap operas started in 1967 withBellbird, produced by theAustralian Broadcasting Corporation. This rural-based serial was screened in an early evening slot in 15-minute installments as a lead-in to the evening news.Bellbird was a moderate success but built up a consistent and loyal viewer base, especially in rural areas, and enjoyed a ten-year run.Motel (1968) was Australia's first half-hour soap opera; the daytime soap had a short run of 132 episodes.
The first major soap opera hit in Australia was the sex-melodramaNumber 96, a nighttime series produced byCash Harmon Television forNetwork 10, which debuted March 1972. The program dealt with such topics ashomosexuality,adultery, drug use, rape within marriage andracism, which had rarely been explored on Australian television programs before. The series became famous for its sex scenes and nudity and for its comedic characters, many of whom became cult heroes in Australia. By 1973,Number 96 had become Australia's highest-rated show. In 1974, the sexed-up antics ofNumber 96 prompted the creation ofThe Box, which rivaled it in terms of nudity and sexual situations and was scheduled in a nighttime slot. Produced byCrawford Productions, many critics consideredThe Box to be a more slickly produced and better written show thanNumber 96.The Box also aired on the Ten Network, programmed to run right afterNumber 96. For 1974Number 96 was again the highest rating show on Australian television, and that yearThe Box occupied the number two spot.
Also in 1974, theReg Grundy Organisation created its first soap opera, and significantly Australia's firstteen soap opera,Class of '74. With its attempts to hint at the sex and sin shown more openly onNumber 96 andThe Box, its high school setting and early evening timeslot,Class of '74 came under intense scrutiny from the Broadcasting Control Board, who vetted scripts and altered entire storylines.
By 1975, bothNumber 96 andThe Box, perhaps as a reaction to declining ratings for both shows, de-emphasised the sex and nudity, shifting more towards comedic plots.Class of '74 was renamedClass of '75 and also added more slapstick comedy for its second year, but the revamped show's ratings declined, resulting in its cancellation in mid-1975. That year Cash Harmon's newly launched second soapThe Unisexers failed in its early evening slot and was cancelled after three weeks; the Reg Grundy Organisation's second soapUntil Tomorrow ran in a daytime slot for 180 episodes.
A feature film version ofBellbird entitledCountry Town was produced in 1971 by two of the show's stars, Gary Gray and Terry McDermott, without production involvement by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.Number 96 andThe Box also released feature film versions, both of which had the same title as the series, released in 1974 and 1975 respectively. As Australian television had broadcast in black and white until 1975, these theatrical releases all had the novelty of being in colour. The film versions ofNumber 96 andThe Box also allowed more explicit nudity than could be shown on television at that time.
In November 1976The Young Doctors debuted on theNine Network. This Grundy Organization series eschewed the adult drama ofNumber 96 andThe Box, focusing more on relationship drama and romance. It became a popular success but received few critical accolades. A week laterThe Sullivans, a carefully produced period serial chronicling the effects of World War II on aMelbourne family, also debuted on Nine. Produced by Crawford Productions,The Sullivans became a ratings success, attracted many positive reviews, and won television awards. During this periodNumber 96 re-introduced nudity into its episodes, with several much-publicised full-frontal nude scenes, a cast revamp and a new range of shock storylines designed to boost the show's declining ratings.Bellbird experienced changes to its broadcast pattern with episodes screening in 60 minute blocks, and later in 30 minute installments.
Bellbird,Number 96 andThe Box, which had been experiencing declining ratings, were cancelled in 1977. Various attempts to revamp each of the shows with cast reshuffles or spectacular disaster storylines had proved only temporarily successful.The Young Doctors andThe Sullivans continued to be popular. November 1977 saw the launch of successful soap opera/police procedural seriesCop Shop (1977–1984) produced by Crawford Productions forChannel Seven. In early December 1977Channel Ten debuted the Reg Grundy Organisation producedThe Restless Years (1977–1981), a more standard soap drama focusing on several young school leavers.
The Seven Network, achieving success withCop Shop produced by Crawford Productions, had Crawfords produceSkyways, a series with a similar format but set in an airport, to compete with the Nine Network's popular talk showThe Don Lane Show.Skyways, which debuted in July 1979, emphasised adult situations including homosexuality, marriage problems, adultery,prostitution, drug use and smuggling, crime, suicide, political intrigue, andmurder, and featured some nudity. Despite this, the program achieved only moderate ratings and was cancelled in mid-1981.
The Reg Grundy Organisation found major success with the women's-prison dramaPrisoner (1979–1986) on Network Ten, and melodramaticfamily sagaSons and Daughters (1982–1987) on the Seven Network. Both shows achieved high ratings in their original runs, and unusually, found success in repeats after the programs ended.
Grundy soapThe Young Doctors and Crawford Productions'The Sullivans continued on the Nine Network until late 1982. Thereafter Nine attempted many new replacement soap operas produced by the Reg Grundy Organisation:Taurus Rising (1982),Waterloo Station (1983),Starting Out (1983) andPossession (1985), along withPrime Time (1986) produced by Crawford Productions. None of these programs were successful and most were cancelled after only a few months. The Reg Grundy Organisation also createdNeighbours, a suburban-based daily serial devised as a gentle family drama with some comedic and lightweight situations, for the Seven Network in 1985.
Produced in Melbourne at the studios ofHSV-7,Neighbours achieved high ratings in Melbourne,Brisbane andAdelaide, but not inSydney, where it aired at 5.30 p.m. placing it against the hit dating game showPerfect Match on Channel 10. The Seven Network's Sydney stationATN-7 quickly lost interest inNeighbours as a result of the low ratings in Sydney. HSV-7 in Melbourne lobbied heavily to keepNeighbours on the air, but ATN-7 managed to convince the rest of the network to cancel the show and instead keep ATN-7's own Sydney-based dramasA Country Practice andSons and Daughters.
After the network cancelledNeighbours, it was immediately picked up by Channel Ten, which revamped the cast and scripts slightly and aired the series in the 7.00 p.m. slot starting 20 January 1986. It initially attracted low audiences; however, after a concerted publicity drive, Ten managed to transform the series into a major success, turning several of its actors into major international stars. The show's popularity eventually declined and it was moved to the 6.30 p.m. slot in 1992. In January 2011 it moved toEleven and ended after 8,903 episodes on 28 July 2022. In November 2022,Amazon Freevee revived the show with an order of 400 episodes to begin airing in 2023. It is Australia's longest-running soap opera.
The success ofNeighbours in the 1980s prompted the creation of somewhat similar suburban and family or teen-oriented soap operas such asHome and Away (1988–present) on Channel Seven, where compared toNeighbours,Home and Away's storylines were more adult-themed and hard-hitting, as well as becoming the most-awarded and highest-rated soap opera on Australian television, andRichmond Hill (1988) on Channel Ten. Both proved popular, howeverRichmond Hill emerged as only a moderate success and was cancelled after one year to be replaced on Ten byE Street (1989–1993).
Nine continued trying to establish a successful new soap opera, without success. After the failure of family dramaFamily and Friends in 1990, it launched the raunchier and more extremeChances in 1991, which resurrected the sex and melodrama ofNumber 96 andThe Box in an attempt to attract attention.Chances achieved only moderate ratings, and was moved to a late-night timeslot. It underwent several revamps that removed much of the original cast, and refocused the storylines to incorporate science-fiction and fantasy elements. The series continued in a late night slot until 1992, when it was cancelled due to low ratings despite the much-discussed fantasy storylines.
Several Australian soap operas have also found significant international success. In the UK, starting in the mid-1980s, daytime broadcasts ofThe Young Doctors,The Sullivans,Sons and Daughters andNeighbours (which itself was subsequently moved to an early-evening slot) achieved significant success. Grundy'sPrisoner began airing in the United States in 1979 and achieved high ratings in many regions there, however, the show ended its run in that country three years into its run.Prisoner also aired in late-night timeslots in the UK beginning in the late 1980s, achieving enduring cult success there. The show became so popular in that country that it prompted the creation of two stage plays and a stage musical based on the show, all of which toured the UK, among many other spin-offs. In the late 1990s, Channel 5 repeatedPrisoner in the UK. Between 1998 and 2005, Channel 5 ran late-night repeats ofSons and Daughters. During the 1980s, the Australian attempts to emulate big-budget U.S. soap operas such asDallas andDynasty had resulted in the debuts ofTaurus Rising andReturn to Eden, two slick soap opera dramas with big budgets that were shot entirely on film. Though their middling Australian ratings resulted in the shows running only for a single season, both programs were successfully sold internationally.
Other shows to achieve varying levels of international success includeRichmond Hill,E Street,Paradise Beach (1993–1994), andPacific Drive (1995–1997). Indeed, these last two series were designed specifically for international distribution. Channel Seven'sHome and Away, a teen soap developed as a rival toNeighbours, has also achieved significant and enduring success on UK television.
Something in the Air, a serial examining a range of characters in a small country town ran on the ABC from 2000 to 2002.
Attempts to replicate the success of daily teen-oriented serialsNeighbours andHome and Away saw the creation ofEcho Point (1995) andBreakers (1999) on Network Ten. These programs foregrounded youthful attractive casts and appealing locations but the programs were not long-running successes andNeighbours andHome and Away remained the most visible and consistently successful Australian soap operas in production. In their home country, they both attracted respectable although not spectacular ratings in the early 2000s. By 2004,Neighbours was regularly attracting just under a million viewers per episode[84] – considered at that time a low figure for Australian prime time television. By March 2007, the Australian audience forNeighbours had fallen to fewer than 700,000 a night. This prompted a revamp of the show's cast, its visual presentation, and a move away from the recently added action-oriented emphasis to refocus the show on the domestic storylines it is traditionally known for.[85] During this periodNeighbours andHome and Away continued to achieve significant ratings in the UK. This and other lucrative overseas markets, along with Australian broadcasting laws that enforce a minimum amount of domestic drama production on commercial television networks, help ensure that both programs remain in production. Both shows get higher total ratings in the UK than in Australia (the UK has three times the total population of Australia) and the UK channels make a major contribution to the production costs.
It has been suggested that with their emphasis on the younger, attractive and charismatic characters,Neighbours andHome and Away have found success in the middle ground between glamorous, fantastic U.S. soaps with their wealthy but tragic heroes[20] and the more grim, naturalistic UK soap operas populated by older, unglamorous characters.[83] The casts ofNeighbours andHome and Away are predominantly younger and more attractive than the casts of UK soaps, and without excessive wealth and glamour of the U.S. daytime serial,[20] a middle-ground in which they have found their lucrative niche.
Neighbours was carried in the United States on theOxygencable channel in March 2004; however it attracted few viewers, perhaps in part due to its scheduling opposite well-established and highly popular U.S. soap operas such asAll My Children andThe Young and the Restless, and was dropped by the network shortly afterwards due to low ratings.
headLand made its debut on Channel Seven in November 2005, the series arose out of a proposed spinoff ofHome and Away that was to have been produced in conjunction withHome and Away's UK broadcaster,Channel 5. The idea for the spin-off was scuttled after Five pulled out of the deal, which meant that the show could potentially air on a rival channel in the UK; as such, Five requested that the new show be developed as a standalone series and not be spun off from a series that it owned a stake in. The series premiered in Australia on November 15, 2005, but was not a ratings success and was cancelled two months later on January 23, 2006. The series broadcast onE4 and Channel 4 in the UK. Nickelodeon'sH2O: Just Add Water appeared in July 2006 on Network Ten. Since Connie considered this mention as a torrid soap opera, this was mentioned in theSteven Universe episode "Love Letters".
After losing the UK television rights toNeighbours to Five, the BBC commissioned a replacement serialOut of the Blue, which was produced in Australia. It debuted as part of BBC One's weekday afternoon schedule on 28 April 2008[86] but low ratings prompted its move toBBC Two on 19 May 2008.[87][88] The series was cancelled after its first season.[89]
Neighbours' continued low ratings in Australia resulted in it being moved to Ten's new digital channel,Eleven on January 11, 2011.[90] However, it continues to achieve reasonable ratings onChannel 5 in the United Kingdom, and as of March 2013 still reportedly achieved significant international sales.[91]
Neighbours was cancelled due to Channel 5, the UK broadcaster of the show, deciding to drop the programme – the money they were paying for the rights was providing the majority of its funding. It ended on 29 July 2022. Months after its series finale,Fremantle Australia, the programme's production company, announced on 17 November 2022, that production on the programme would restart in 2023 after the company agreed on a deal withAmazon Freevee. Amazon Freevee aired the programme for free in the UK and the US while Network 10 retained the rights to the programme.[92]
In February 2025, the series was cancelled again, with production concluding in July and episodes ceasing to air in December.[93][94][95]
Pioneering seriesPukemanu[96] aired over two years (1971–72) and was theNZBC's first continuing drama. It followed the goings-on of a North Island timber town.[97]Close to Home is a New Zealand television soap opera that ran onTVNZ 1 from 1975 to 1983. At its peak in 1977 nearly one million viewers tuned in twice weekly to watch the series co-created by Michael Noonan and Tony Isaac (who had initially only agreed to make the show on the condition they would get to makeThe Governor).[98]Gloss is a television drama series that screened from 1987 to 1990. The series is about a fictional publishing empire run by the Redfern family. Gloss was NZ's answer to US soapDynasty, with the Carrington oil scions replaced by the wealthy Redferns and their Auckland magazine empire. It was a starting point for many actors who went on to many productions in New Zealand, Australia and around the world includingTemuera Morrison,Miranda Harcourt,Peter Elliott,Lisa Chappell,Danielle Cormack andKevin Smith. Many of them would go on to star inShortland Street, which has been New Zealand's most popular soap since its debut in 1992. It airs onTVNZ 2.
Relatively few daily soap operas have been produced on English Canadian television, with most Canadian stations and networks that carry soap operas airing those imported from the United States or the United Kingdom. Notable daily soaps that did exist includedFamily Passions,Scarlett Hill,Strange Paradise,Metropia,Train 48 and the international co-productionForeign Affairs.Family Passions was an hour-long program, as is typical of American daytime soaps; all of the others ran half-hour episodes. Unlike American or British soap operas, the most influential of which have run for years or even decades, even daily Canadian soap operas have run for a few seasons at most. Short-run soaps, including49th & Main andNorth/South, have also aired. Many of these were produced in an effort to comply withCanadian content regulations, which require a percentage of programming on Canadian television to originate from Canada.
Unlike the season-based production in most countries, most of Indian television fiction tends to be regular-broadcasting soap opera. These started in the 1980s, as more and more people began to purchase television sets. At the beginning of the 21st century, soap operas became an integral part of Indian culture whenBalaji Telefilms'sKyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi premiered on Disney's 21st Century Fox ownedStarPlus, becoming the highest rated show in Asia on weekdays prime time 10:30pm. Indian soap operas mostly concentrate on the conflict between love and arranged marriages occurring in India, and many includes family melodrama. Indian soap operas have multilingual production.[99]
Many soap operas produced in India are also broadcast overseas in the UK, Canada, the United States, and some parts of Europe, South Africa, Australia and South East Asia. They are often mass-produced under large production banners, with companies likeBalaji Telefilms running different language versions of the same serial on different television networks or channels.[100]
The Australian serialThe Restless Years was remade in theNetherlands asGoede tijden, slechte tijden (which debuted in 1990) and in Germany asGute Zeiten, schlechte Zeiten (which has aired since 1992): both titles translate to "good times, bad times". These remakes are still airing, but have long since diverged from the original Australianstorylines. The two shows are the highest-rated soap operas in their respective countries.
A later Australian serial,Sons and Daughters, has inspired fiveremakes produced under license from the original producers and based, initially, on original story and character outlines. These areVerbotene Liebe (Germany, 1995–2015);Skilda världar (Sweden, 1996–2002);Apagorevmeni agapi (Greece, 1998);Cuori Rubati (Italy, 2002–2003) andZabranjena ljubav (Croatia, 2004–2008). BothThe Restless Years andSons and Daughters were created and produced in Australia by the Reg Grundy Organisation.
Another Australian soap opera reformatted for a European audience wasE Street which ran onNetwork 10 in Australia from 1989 to 1993. Germany produced 37 episodes ofWesterdeich ("Westside") in 1995 using scripts from 1989 episodes ofE Street. It was also remade in Belgium asWittekerke ("Whitechurch") and ran from 1993 to 2008.
TheNorwegian soap operaHotel Cæsar aired onTV 2 from 1998 to 2017, and is the longest-running television drama inScandinavia. Popular foreign soaps in the country includeDays of Our Lives (broadcast on TV6 (Norway),The Bold and the Beautiful (TNT (Norway) andHome and Away (TV 2), all of which are subtitled.
Serials have includedGoede tijden, slechte tijden (1990–present),Onderweg naar Morgen (1994–2010) andGoudkust (1996–2001). In 2016Goede tijden, slechte tijden spin-offNieuwe Tijden started airing, but was ultimately cancelled by broadcaster RTL in 2018.[101] Linear viewership forGoede tijden, slechte tijden, the country's most prominent soap opera, has decreased in recent years. However, due to a rising viewership on streaming platforms, RTL has decided to continue producing the show throughout the 2022/2023 television season.[102] U.S. daytime serialsAs The World Turns andThe Bold and the Beautiful have aired in the Netherlands;As the World Turns began airing in the country in 1990, withDutch subtitles.
In the 1980s, West German networks successfully added American daytime and primetime soap operas to their schedule beforeDas Erste introduced its first self-produced weekly soap withLindenstraße, which was seen as a German counterpart toCoronation Street. Like in other countries, the soap opera met with negative reviews, but eventually proved critics wrong with nearly 13 million viewers tuning in each week. Even though the format proved successful, it was not until 1992 beforeGute Zeiten, schlechte Zeiten became the first German daily soap opera. Early ratings were bad as were the reviews, but theRTL network was willing to give its first soap opera a chance; ratings would improve, climbing to 7 million viewers by 2002. Not long afterGute Zeiten, schlechte Zeiten, Das Erste introducedMarienhof, which aired twice a week.
After successfully creating the first German daily soap, production company Grundy Ufa wanted to produce another soap for RTL. LikeGZSZ, the format was based on an Australian soap opera fromReg Watson. But RTL did not like the plot idea about separated twins who meet each other for the first time after 20 years and fall in love without knowing that they are related. The project was then taken to Das Erste, which commissioned the program, titledVerbotene Liebe, which premiered on January 2, 1995. With the premiere ofVerbotene Liebe, the network turnedMarienhof into a daily soap as well. In the meanwhile, RTL debuted the Grundy Ufa–producedUnter uns in late 1994.
The teen soap operaSchloss Einstein debuted on September 4, 1998, focusing on the life of a group of teenagers at the fictional titular boarding school nearBerlin. As of July 2014, the series has produced over 815 episodes during the course of 17 seasons, a milestone in German television programming, and was renewed for an 18th season to debut in 2015.
In 1999, after the lasting success ofGute Zeiten, schlechte Zeiten,Marienhof,Unter uns andVerbotene Liebe,ProSieben airedMallorca – Suche nach dem Paradies, set onthe Spanish island with the same name. After nine months, the network canceled the program due to low viewership and high production costs. Even though ratings had improved, the show ended its run in a morning timeslot. The soap opera became something of a cult classic, as its 200-episode run was repeated several times onfree-to-air andpay television.
In 2006,Alles was zählt became the last successful daily soap to make its debut, airing as a lead-in toGute Zeiten, schlechte Zeiten and also produced by Grundy Ufa. Since Germany started to produce its owntelenovelas, all soap operas faced declines in ratings.Unter uns was in danger of cancellation in 2009, but escaped such a fate due to budget cuts imposed by the show's producers and the firing of original cast member Holger Franke, whose firing and the death of his character outraged fans, resulting in a ratings spike in early 2010. AfterUnter uns was saved, Das Erste planned to make changes to its soap lineup.Marienhof had to deal with multiple issues in its storytelling, as well as in producing a successful half-hour show. Several changes were made within months, howeverMarienhof was canceled in June 2011.Verbotene Liebe was in danger of being cancelled as well, but convinced the network to renew it with changes that it made in both 2010 and 2011; the soap was later expanded to 45 minutes afterMarienhof was canceled, and the network tried to decide on whether to revamp its lineup.
WhileGute Zeiten, schlechte Zeiten,Unter uns andAlles was zählt are currently the only daily soaps on the air afterVerbotene Liebe has been cancelled and aired its last episode in June, 2015 due to low ratings, the telenovelasSturm der Liebe andRote Rosen are considered soaps by the press as well, thanks to the changing protagonists every season.
Leah Thys, actress in the Belgian soapThuis. At the back Peter Rouffaer is visible.
InBelgium, the two major soap operas areThuis ("Home") andFamilie ("Family"), both prime time soap operas. Soap operas have been very popular inFlanders, the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium.Familie debuted in late 1991, and with more han 6,700 half-hour episodes, it has the highest episode total of any soap in Europe outside of the United Kingdom. The highest-rated soap opera isThuis, which has aired on "één" since late 1995.Thuis is often one of the five most-watched Belgian shows and regularly garners over one million viewers (with 6.6 million Flemings in total).
During the 1990s, foreign soap operas such asNeighbours andThe Bold and the Beautiful were extremely popular, the latter having achieved a cult status in Belgium and airing in the middle of the decade during prime time. Both soaps still air today, along with other foreign soaps such asDays of Our Lives, Australia'sHome and Away and Germany's "Sturm der Liebe".Vitaya unsuccessful attempted to air the Dutch soap opera "Goede tijden, slechte tijden" in 2010. Other foreign soaps that previously aired on Belgian television includeThe Young and the Restless,EastEnders (both on VTM), "Port Charles" (at één, then known as TV1) and "Coronation Street" (on Vitaya). "Santa Barbara" aired during the 1990s on VTM for its entire run.
In the early 2000s, the only teen soap opera on Belgian television wasSpring ("Jump" in English), which aired on the youth-orientedKetnet and produced over 600 15-minute episodes from late 2002 until 2009, when it was cancelled after a steady decline in ratings following the departures of many of its original characters.
The most successful soap opera in Italy is the evening seriesUn posto al sole ("A Place Under the Sun"), which had aired onRai 3 since 1996 (whose format is based on the Australian soap operaNeighbours). Several other Italian soaps have been produced such asRicominciare ("Starting Over"),Cuori rubati ("Stolen Hearts"),Vivere ("Living"),Sottocasa ("Downstairs"),Agrodolce ("Bittersweet") andCentovetrine ("Hundred Shop Windows").
The most popular Italian prime-time soap opera,Incantesimo ("Enchantment"), which ran from 1998 to 2008, became a daytime soap opera for the final two years of its run, airing five days a week onRai 1. The same happened withIl paradiso delle signore (Woman's Paradise), aperiod drama, which ran from 2015 to 2017 in prime time, and became a daytime period soap opera from 2018.
In the early years ofRTÉ, the network produced several dramas but had not come close to launching a long-running serial. RTÉ's first television soap wasTolka Row, which was set in urbanDublin. For several years, bothTolka Row andThe Riordans were produced by RTÉ; however, the urban soap was soon dropped in favor of the more popular rural soap operaThe Riordans, which premiered in 1965.[103] Executives fromYorkshire Television visited during on-location shoots forThe Riordans in the early 1970s and in 1972, debutedEmmerdale Farm (nowEmmerdale), based on the successful format of the Irish soap opera. In the late 1970s,The Riordans was controversially dropped. The creator of that series would then go on to produce the second of his "Agri-soap"trilogyBracken, starringGabriel Byrne, whose character had appeared in the last few seasons ofThe Riordans. Bracken was soon replaced by the third "Agri-soap"Glenroe, which ran until 2001.
In 1989, RTÉ decided to produce its first Dublin-based soap opera since the 1960s.Fair City, which is set in the fictional city of Carrickstown, initially aired one night a week during the 1989–90 season, and similar to its rural soaps, much of the footage was filmed on location – in a suburb of Dublin City. In 1992, RTÉ made a major investment into the series by copying the houses used in the on-location shoots for an on-site set in RTÉ's Headquarters in Dublin 4. By the early 1990s, it was airing two nights a week for 35 weeks a year. With competition from the UK soap operas, RTÉ expandedFair City to three nights a week for most of the year and one night a week during the summer in 1996, later expanding to four nights a week and two nights during the summer. From the early 2000s, the series went through periods of airing three or four episodes a week, airing all 52 weeks of the year.Fair City currently airs Sundays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays onRTÉ One.
TG4 produce the Irish language soapRos na Rún ("Headland of the Secrets" or "Headland of the Sweethearts"); set in the fictional village ofRos Na Rún, located outsideGalway and nearSpiddal, it centres on the domestic and professional lives of the town's residents. It is modeled on an average village in the West of Ireland, but with its own distinct personality – with a diverse population that share secrets, romances and friendships among other things. While the core community has remained the same, the look and feel ofRos Na Rún has changed and evolved over the years to incorporate the changing face of rural Ireland. It has an established a place not only in the hearts and minds of the Irish speaking public, but also the wider Irish audience. The program has dealt with many topics, includingdomestic violence,infidelity,theft,arson,abortion, homosexuality, adoption, murder, rape, drugs,teen pregnancy andpaedophilia. It runs twice a week for 35 weeks of the year, currently airing Tuesday and Thursday nights.Ros na Rún is the single largest independent production commissioned in the history of Irish broadcasting. Prior to TG4's launch, it aired on RTÉ One in the early 1990s.
The first soap to air outside RTE/TG4 wasRed Rock which was broadcast onVirgin Media Ireland from January 2015 to 2020 . Red Rock aired twice a week on Wednesday and Thursday nights. Focusing on the activities of the detectives of the localGarda Síochána station and townsfolk, three series of the programme were broadcast, concluding just over five years from the date of its debut.
RTÉ Radio produced its first radio soap,Kennedys of Castleross, which ran from April 13, 1955, to 1975.[104] In 1979 RTÉ long running TV soap The Riordans moved to Radio until December 24, 1985.[105] In the mid-1980s, RTÉ debuted a new radio soap,Harbour Hotel, which ran until the mid-1990s. The network later ran two short-lived radio soaps,Konvenience Korner andRiverrun, which were followed in 2004 byDriftwood.[106] RTÉ does not run any radio soaps, howeverRTÉ Radio 1 continues to air radio dramas as part of its nighttime schedule.[107]
An early serial wasSti skia tou hrimatos ("Money Shadows"), which ran from 1990 to 1991. September 1991 saw the debut ofLampsi ("the Shining"), from creator Nicos Foskolos. The series would become Greece's longest-running soap opera. After the success ofLampsi came the short livedTo galazio diamandi ("Blue Diamond") andSimphonia siopis ("Omertà").Lampsi was canceled in June 2005 due to declining ratings. It was replaced byErotas ("Love"), a soap that ran from 2005 to 2008. After that series ended, ANT1 abandoned the soap opera genre and focused on comedy series and weekly dramas.
Greece's second longest-running soap isKalimera Zoi ("Goodmorning Life"), which ran from September 1993 until its cancellation in June 2006 due to low ratings.
Mega Channel began producing soap operas in 1990 with the prime time serialI Dipsa ("The Thirst"), which ran for 102 episodes. Other daytime soaps have includedParalliloi dromoi (1992–1994) and its successorHaravgi ("Daylight", 1994–1995), both of which were cancelled due to low viewership; as well as the serialsApagorevmeni Agapi ("Forbidden Love"), which ran from 1998 to 2006;Gia mia thesi ston Ilio ("A Spot Under the Sun"), which ran from 1998 to 2002;Filodoxies ("Expectations"), which ran from 2002 to 2006; andVera Sto Deksi ("Ring on the Right Hand"), which ran from 2004 to 2006 and proved to be a successful competitor toLampsi, causing that show's ratings to decline.
Ta Mistika Tis Edem ("Edem Secrets"), which was created by the producers ofVera Sto Deksi, debuted in 2008 and has eclipsed that show's success. Its ratings place it consistently among the three highest-rated daytime programs.
YENED (which was renamed ERT2 in 1982) was responsible for the first Greek soap operasI Kravgi Ton Likon andMegistanes. ERT also produced the long-running soapO Simvoleografos. Since 2000 and with the introduction of private television, ERT produced additional daily soap operas, which includedPathos ("Passion"),Erotika tis Edem ("Loving in Eden") andTa ftera tou erota ("The Wings of Love"). These failed to achieve high ratings and were canceled shortly after their premiere.
The first daytime soap opera produced by a Cyprus channel was LOGOs TV'sOdos Den Ksehno ("'Don't Forget' Street"), which ran from January to December 1996. It was followed byTo Serial, which also ran for one year from September 1997 to June 1998.
CyBC created the third weekdaily soap,Anemi Tou Pathous ("Passion Winds"), running from January 2000 to June 2004, which was replaced byI Platia ("The Square") from September 2004 to July 2006.Epikindini Zoni ran from 2009 to 2010, and was cancelled after 120 episodes.Vimata Stin Ammo made its debut in September 2010 until 2014 and was followed byHalkina Hronia (2017–2022).
Sigma TV first commissioned the weekdaily comedic soapSto Para Pente, which aired from September 1998 to June 2004, and was the longest weekday show in Cyprus television history, before it was surpassed bySe Fonto Kokkino, which ran from September 2008 to July 2012 and then byGalateia (2016-2020).Other Sigma TV weekday shows includeAkti Oniron (which ran from 1999 to 2001),Vourate Geitonoi (which ran from 2001 to 2005, and was the most successful weekday series, achieving ratings shares of up to 70% of all television households in the country),Oi Takkoi (which ran from 2002 to 2005),S' Agapo (which ran from 2001 to 2002),Vasiliki (which ran from 2005 to 2006),Vendetta (which ran from September 2005 to December 2006),30 kai Kati (which ran from 2006 to 2007),Mila Mou (which ran from September 2007 to January 2009),7 ouranoi ke dinnefa alites (2012-2015) andGalateia (2016-2020)
ANT1 Cyprus aired the soapI Goitia Tis Amartias in 2002, which was soon canceled.Dikse Mou To Filo Sou followed from 2006 to 2009, along withGia Tin Agapi Sou, which ran from 2008 to 2009 and itself was followed byPanselinos, which has aired 2009 to 2011.
The longest-running weekly show on Cyprus television isIstories Tou Horkou ("Villages Stories", which premiered on CyBC in March 1996 and ran until its cancellation in June 2006; it was revived in September 2010 but was cancelled again in March 2011 due to very low ratings), followed byManolis Ke Katina ("Manolis and Katina", which ran from 1995 to 2004). The most controversial of these series wasTo Kafenio ("The Coffee Shop"), which premiered on CyBC in 1993 as a weekly series, before moving to MEGA Channel Cyprus six years later in 1999 as a weekday show and then moved to ANT1 Cyprus in 2000, which canceled the show one year later. There were plans to move the show back to CyBC as a weekly series in 2001, with the original cast, however, this plan was never realised. The most successful weekly shows in Cyprus currently are ANT1'sEleni I Porni ("Eleni, The Whore"), which premiered in October 2010 and CyBC'sStin Akri Tu Paradisou ("At The Heaven's Edge"), which premiered in 2007. The most successful weekdaily soap wasAigia Fuxia, which aired on ANT1 Cyprus from 2008 to 2010.
Esko Kovero as Ismo Laitela in the TV series Salatut elämät
The Finnish soap opera,Salatut elämät (Secret Lives), has achieved popularity in Finland since its 1999 debut onMTV3. It focuses on the lives of people along the imaginary Pihlajakatu street inHelsinki. The show has also spawned several Internet spin-off series and a film based on the show that was released in 2012 and the sequel film released in 2014.
Another Finnish soap opera,Rantabaari (The Beach bar), started airing onMTV Sub in 2019. It focuses on the lives of the people working at the titular beach bar (later pizzeria) called Trissa, located in Taivallahti inHelsinki, and their friends and family. Rantabaari is the sister series of Salatut elämät and features some characters who formerly appeared at Salatut elämät.[108]
Other soap-like shows in Finland are YLE showsUusi päivä (which has aired from 2010 to 2018) andKotikatu (which ran from 1995 to 2012), however these programs did not adhere to a five-episode-a-week schedule.
AL Mirath (also known as Al Meerath or Inheritance) is the world's first Arabic soap opera. It premiered on MBC 1 andShahid VIP on March 1, 2020. The series is a melodramatic saga that delves into the social, economic, and cultural aspects of life in Saudi Arabia. It revolves around the intense rivalry between two families, the Bahitanis and the Khawatnis, and includes elements of romance, secrets, and schemes.
AL Mirath has been a highly successful series. Initially, it was commissioned for 250 episodes. Due to its popularity, the series continued with additional seasons, and by 2023, it had produced 750 episodes.
Egypt
In February 2022, MBC launched the first Egyptian daily soap opera,Downtown West El Balad. In Cairo, two brothers became enemies after the death of their father because the eldest son was excluded from the inheritance. 190 episodes have already been produced.
InLatin America, for many years, primetime (as well as part of daytime) programming, for the most part, has been traditionally composed of telenovelas. However, throughout the years, there have been cases where a number of television programs tended to "mix" the concepts of television series and telenovela, such as, for example, a telenovela that lasted several seasons to end. With this "overlap", many people consider that these shows could be more accurately described as "soap operas". With this being said, the two most notable Latin American examples of TV programs that could fit on the definition of a "soap opera" areChiquititas (in bothArgentina andBrazil) andMalhação (only in Brazil).
Chiquititas was first broadcast in Argentina byTelefe in 1995 and soon became a national hit, especially among children. In regards to the audience, all eight seasons (the final season ended in 2006) ofChiquititas guaranteed the first place in the Argentine TV ratings for Telefe. Throughout the years,Chiquititas had a number of spin-offs not only in Argentina, but also in Brazil,Mexico andPortugal. In 1997,Silvio Santos, founder and owner of the Brazilian television networkSBT, seeing the good ratings ofChiquititas in Argentina, decided to make a partnership with Telefe, and thus, SBT started to broadcastChiquititas in Brazil, but in the format of "remake", with the use of thePortuguese language instead ofSpanish, with the use of dubbing when singing the soundtrack songs (unlike the Argentine version, on which the actors themselves sung the songs), with a Brazilian cast and with slight modifications in regards to its plot (the Brazilian version was set in the city ofSão Paulo instead ofBuenos Aires, although many scenes of the Brazilian adaptation were actually filmed at the same Telefe studios in Buenos Aires where the Argentine version was also recorded, due to the aforementioned partnership between Telefe and SBT). The Brazilian version ofChiquititas, which lasted five seasons and ended in 2001, was successful in the ratings as well, in a slightly smaller scale compared to the Argentine version, and despite the success ofMalhação (see below), the soap opera was one of the most known TV programs of the late 1990s in Brazil, enough to putChiquititas also in the imaginary of many Brazilian children (a proof of this is that the casting process for the third season ofChiquititas in 1999 reunited about 15,000 children in the city of São Paulo alone, a record number not seen even in any Brazilian telenovela). In 2013, SBT decided to make a second adaptation ofChiquititas, which lasted two seasons (the final season ended in 2015), but unlike the first version, which resembled more like its Argentine counterpart, the second version, produced only by SBT, is different not only because the soundtrack is entirely sung by the actors themselves (as well as on the Argentine version, on which the actors did not dub the songs, but unlike the first Brazilian adaptation). Despite the fact that the ratings of the 2013 version ofChiquititas were smaller, the soap opera was not considered a failure by the critics. SBT executives evaluated the ratings as being "satisfactory", and some fans consider the 2013 version to be a small "revival" of the 1997 version ofChiquititas.
Malhação has been transmitted byRede Globo on almost every week since 1995 and has become the most successful Brazilian soap opera in the ratings. On each one of the 27 seasons shown as of 2021, the soap opera stayed in the first place on the ratings (like the Argentine version ofChiquititas). Moreover,Malhação also had a number of spin-offs being produced in Brazil. However, unlikeChiquititas,Malhação is more focused on teenagers, with more mature issues liketeenage pregnancy,sexual relationships and the use of illicitdrugs being discussed on its plot. Another interesting topic is thatMalhação is considered by some fans as being the "entrance door" to many rookie actors who obtain the first opportunity of working on Rede Globo, because history has shown that a good acting inMalhação increases the possibility of being "promoted" to the primetime telenovelas (also broadcast by Rede Globo). In fact, estimates indicate that hundreds of actors participate in the casting process ofMalhação each year, proving that many aspiring actors want to appear in this soap opera to further progress their careers.
With the advent ofinternet television and mobile phones, several soap operas have also been produced specifically for these platforms, includingEastEnders: E20, a spin-off of the establishedEastEnders. For those produced only for the mobile phone, episodes may generally consist of about six or seven pictures and accompanying text.
On September 13, 2011,TG4 launched a new 10-part online series titled,Na Rúin (an Internet spin-off ofRos na Rún). The miniseries took on the theme of amystery; the viewer had to read Rachel and Lorcán's blogs as well as watch video diaries detailing each character's thoughts to solve the mystery of missing teenage character Ciara.
In 1996, Canadian artificial intelligence researcherChris McKinstry created the online soap operaCR6 (an acronym forClickable Reality); despite its obscurity, it received some media attention at the time and featured talent such asBrendan Fehr; at least eight episodes ofCR6 were released. It remains an early example of aweb-series but despite the seemingly positive media buzz for the show, according to McKinstry, he lost overCAD$1 million on production and distribution costs, andCR6 was considered a failure; while McKinstry would take his own life in 2006, thanks to the series' historical context,CR6 has amassed a cult following from lost media searchers.[109]
Due to the massive number of episodes typically produced for a long-running soap opera (into the tens of thousands for some) and the fact that many episodes are lost over time, home video release (in VHS, DVD or Blu-ray) of daily soap operas is generally considered impractical and impossible beyond occasional retrospective releases or highlights. A notable exception is the 1966–1971 seriesDark Shadows, which has had its entire run of 1,225 episodes (with an audio recreation of its sole missing episode) released to home video. In the case of American "primetime soap operas" this generally does not apply as typically such series produce far fewer episodes (generally on par with that of other genres), allowing home video release.
In film, the 1982 comedyTootsie has the lead character impersonating a woman in order to gain acting work on a long-running television soap opera. Several scenes parody the production of soaps, their outrageous storylines and idiosyncratic stylistic elements.
The 1991 comedySoapdish starsSally Field as an aging soap opera actress on the fictional seriesThe Sun Also Sets who pines over her own neuroses and misfortunes, such as her live-inboyfriend, who leaves her to go back to his wife, and the incidents of backstabbing and scheming behind the scenes, some of which are more interesting than the stories on the programme.
Another 1991 comedy,Delirious, starsJohn Candy as a soap opera writer who, after a head injury, has a dream experience of being in his own creation. The dream experience is an increasingly outrageous exaggeration of soap opera plot elements.
On television, several soap operaparodies have been produced:
The first season of the children's television seriesThe Electric Company featured a recurring sketch, "Love of Chair", spoofing classic soap operas. The title was based on the long-running soap operaLove of Life, and its announcerKen Roberts was also the announcer onLove of Life.
Two of the most famous American parodies were the seriesMary Hartman, Mary Hartman (1976–1977) andSoap (1977–1981), the latter of which was a weekly sitcom/soap opera parody.
The cult Australian prison soap operaPrisoner (1979–1986) included a spoof television soap that the inmates were occasionally seen watching called "Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow". In one episode, specially recorded audio can be heard in which two characters from the fictional soap opera play out a ludicrous script, which clearly pokes fun at the heightened melodrama of daytime soap operas.
British soap operaBrookside (1982–2003) included an in-universe soap opera parody of itself called "Meadowcroft Park" whichBrookside characters referenced and were occasionally seen watching. The soap was set on a newly built housing estate in Chester and real scenes, even a "Part two" caption, were produced for airing on the character's houses TV's. Notably,Meadowcroft was also the originalworking title ofBrookside.
Fresno was a 1986 Americanminiseries spoof of the prime time serials of the period.
The recurring "Acorn Antiques" skit on the UK'sVictoria Wood: As Seen on TV (1985–1987) was modeled onCrossroads and other British soap operas of the 1970s. In 1992, Wood included a new soap parody for the one-off programmeVictoria Wood's All Day Breakfast calledThe Mall, which was set in a shopping centre. Wood played Connie, who was a send up ofPolly Perkins' character Trish Valentine in the failed BBC soapEldorado, which was still airing at the time.
The 1990–1991 ABC dramaTwin Peaks was a prime time series that poked fun at the genre. Episodes during the series' first season also included a fictional soap within the stories, titledInvitation to Love.
Shark Bay (1996) was an Australian parody of glamorous beachside soap operas. It featured many actors who had appeared in Australian soap operasSons and Daughters,Prisoner,Home and Away andNeighbours.[citation needed]
The 2000–2001WB sitcomGrosse Pointe was a self-parody of creatorDarren Star's behind-the-scenes experiences producing nighttime soaps, in particularBeverly Hills, 90210.
The now-cancelled ABC soap operaOne Life to Live would often poke fun at the genre as well, even featuring a soap within the soap calledFraternity Row, which many ofOne Life to Live's characters had either worked on or watched. Months after ABC announced in April 2011 that it would cancelOne Life to Live, the series featured a storyline in whichFraternity Row itself was cancelled, leading the character ofRoxy Balsom (Ilene Kristen) to desperately try and save the series, to no avail. A special episode that aired on December 19, 2011, featured the cast ofOne Life to Live acting out an episode ofFraternity Row in a dream of Roxy's; the episode poked fun at bothOne Life to Live and the entire genre itself, featuring many soap opera stereotypes such as overacting, outrageous story lines, bad casting and incestuous relationships; it also parodied some storylines featured on the real-world soap. The second-to-last episode ofOne Life to Live showed characters watching the final episode ofFraternity Row and exposing the show's last big secret: the series' main heroine and protagonist, Lorraine King Vonvaldenburg Baxter Beumont, was really a man.
Second City TV featuredThe Days of the Week: "Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday. Friday. Saturday. Sunday. These are...The Days of the Week."
The ABC comedy dramaDesperate Housewives (which ran from 2004 to 2012) was a semi-satirical nighttime series that took many elements from the genre.
The Fox broadcast showFuturama has a recurring spoof ofAll My Children calledAll My Circuits.
TheAdult Swim animated seriesTender Touches, which premiered in 2017, is a parody of soap operas.
^abCox, Jim (2003).Frank and Anne Hummert's radio factory: the programs and personalities of broadcasting's most prolific producers. McFarland.ISBN978-0786416318.
^Cull, Nicholas John (1995).Selling War: The British Propaganda Campaign against American "Neutrality" in World War II. Oxford University Press. pp. 135–136.ISBN0-19-508566-3.
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