Serial (radio and television) usually ran from Monday through Friday at exactly the same time every day. A show called The Smith Family which ran only one night a week on WENR in Chicago during the early 1930s was credited as the "great-granddaddy of the soap operas" by radio historian Francis Chase, Jr. One of the other shows that helped pioneer the daytime soap opera/serial was "The Guiding Light", which debuted on NBC radio in 1937, and then switched to CBS Television in 1952. "The Guiding Light" final episode aired on September 18, 2009, having a total of 15,762 episodes air on CBS. Some
Vine Street (TV series) California. Audiences were already accustomed to continuing story serials from the radio, but this was the first attempt on television. The term "soap opera" came about since many soap and cleaning product companies started trying to reach the many housewives who were home to listen these programs which normally aired in the afternoons. The "Oxford English Dictionary"s citation for the phrase dates its first appearance in print to 1938. Vine Street (TV series) Vine Street, considered the first American television soap opera, was first broadcast on 15 April 1938 by W6XAO in Los Angeles, as a daily 15-minute serial, and