The Archers listening figures. Partly established with the aim towards educating farmers following World War II, "The Archers" soon became a popular source of entertainment for the population at large, attracting nine million listeners by 1953. "The Archers" is set in the fictional village of Ambridge in the fictional county of Borsetshire, in England. Borsetshire is situated between, in reality, the contiguous counties of Worcestershire and Warwickshire, south of Birmingham in The Midlands. Possibly based on the village of Cutnall Green, various other villages claim to be the inspiration for Ambridge; "The Bull", Ambridge's pub, is modelled on The Old Bull in
Soap opera soap opera advertisers pay the most for. Those who might watch in workplace breakrooms are not counted, as Nielsen does not track television viewing outside the home. The rise of cable and the internet has also provided new sources of entertainment during the day. The genre's decline has additionally been attributed to reality television displacing soap operas as TV's dominant form of melodrama. An early term for the reality TV genre was "docu-soap". A precursor to reality TV, the televised 1994–95 O. J. Simpson murder case, both preempted and competed with an entire season of soaps, transforming viewing habits and