Soap opera largely aired soap opera reruns, began to be phased out in 2012 and fully ceased operations the following year. The Daytime Emmy Awards, which honor soap operas and other daytime shows, moved from primetime network television to smaller cable channels in 2012, then failed to get any TV broadcast at all in 2014, 2016, and 2017. Several of the U.S.’s most established soaps 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. "As the
Soap opera period was a decline in advertising during the Great Recession, which led shows to reduce their budgets and cast sizes. 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 cliched plots, a lack of diversity that narrowed audience appeal, and the elimination of core families. Serials produced for primetime slots have also found success. The first primetime soap opera was "Faraway Hill" (1946), which aired on October 2, 1946, on the now-defunct DuMont Television Network. "Faraway Hill" ran for 12 episodes and was