Soap opera began airing a recap sequence at the beginning of each episode. With the exception of "Hollyoaks", soap operas in the UK also lack incidental music, although "EastEnders" would sometimes feature music that plays over an ending scene if it was dramatic, with an alternative "EastEnders" theme known as "Julia's theme". Australia has had quite a number of well-known soap operas, some of which have gained cult followings in the UK, 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
Soap opera episode per week are more likely to feature the entire cast in each episode, and to represent all current storylines in each episode. 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 described American daytime television as "TV's richest market," noting the loyalty of the soap opera fan base and the expansion of several half-hour series into hour-long broadcasts in order to maximize ad revenues. The article explained that at that time, many prime time series lost money, while daytime serials earned profits