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 2000s, ABC began to revitalize the primetime soap opera format with shows such as "Desperate Housewives", "Grey's Anatomy", "Brothers & Sisters", "Ugly Betty", "Private Practice", and more recently "Revenge", "Nashville", "Scandal", "Mistresses", and formerly "Ringer", which its sister production company ABC Studios co-produced with CBS Television Studios for The CW. While not soaps in the traditional sense, these shows managed to appeal to wide audiences with their high drama mixed with humor, and are soap operas by definition. These successes led to NBC's launching serials, including "Heroes" and "Friday Night Lights". The upstart MyNetworkTV, a sister network of Fox, launched