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 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