Soap opera Soap opera A soap opera is an ongoing drama serial on television or radio, featuring the lives of many characters and their emotional relationships. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas being sponsored by soap manufacturers. BBC Radio's "The Archers", first broadcast in 1950, is the world’s longest-running radio soap opera; the world's longest-running television soap opera is "Coronation Street", first broadcast on ITV in 1960. The first serial considered to be a "soap opera" was "Painted Dreams", which debuted on October 20, 1930 on Chicago radio station WGN. Early radio series such as "Painted Dreams" were broadcast in
Soap opera but the experiment was largely a failure). 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). Due to