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 soap opera for the final two years of its run, airing five days a week on Rai 1. In the early years of RTÉ, the network produced several dramas but had not come close to launching a long-running serial. RTÉ's first television soap was "Tolka Row", which was set in urban Dublin. For several years, both "Tolka Row" and "The Riordans" were produced by RTÉ; however, the urban soap was soon dropped in favor of the more popular rural soap opera "The Riordans", which premiered in 1965. Executives from Yorkshire Television visited during on-location shoots for "The Riordans" in the