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 radio serial was the long-running soap opera "Blue Hills", which was created by Gwen Meredith and ran from 1949 to 1976. With the advent of Australian television in 1956, daytime television serials followed. The first Australian television soap opera was "Autumn Affair" (1958) featuring radio personality and "Blue Hills" star Queenie Ashton making the transition to television. Each episode of this serial ran for 15 minutes and aired each weekday on the Seven Network. "Autumn Affair" failed to secure a sponsor and ended in 1959 after 156 episodes. It was followed by "The Story of Peter Grey" (1961), another Seven