Soap opera soap opera "Guiding Light" (originally titled "The Guiding Light" until 1975) started as a radio drama in January 1937 and subsequently transferred to television in June 1952. With the exception of several years in the late 1940s, during which creator Irna Phillips was involved in a dispute with Procter & Gamble, "Guiding Light" was heard or seen nearly every weekday from 1937 until 2009, making it the longest story ever told in a broadcast medium. Originally serials were broadcast as fifteen-minute installments each weekday in daytime slots. In 1956, "As the World Turns" and "The Edge of Night", both produced
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