The First Hundred Years and fewer still watched during the afternoon. The series was replaced with the television version of "Guiding Light", which would prove to be much more successful, airing for 57 years (72 years total when its 15-year run on radio is taken into account). The First Hundred Years The First Hundred Years is the first ongoing TV soap opera in the United States that began as a daytime serial, airing on CBS from December 4, 1950 until June 27, 1952. A previous daytime drama on NBC, "These Are My Children", aired in 1949 but only lasted one month, and NBC's "Hawkins
Soap Opera Digest and Ritterman earned a handful of Daytime Emmy Award nominations, with Dick Clark Productions, for co executive producing the "Soap Opera Digest" Awards. "Soap Opera Digest" coined the term and popularized the use of "soap speak," in which show names are abbreviated as acronyms to save space. These abbreviations have come into more extensive use outside the magazine with the advent of internet chat rooms and message boards. For example, current soap operas and their acronyms include "General Hospital" ("GH"), "The Bold and the Beautiful" ("B&B"), and "The Young and the Restless" ("Y&R"). "Days of Our Lives" is referred to