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
Screening of soap operas in Australia Nine Network and Network Ten. It particular became very popular in the early 1990s when Australian actress Carmen Duncan played the role of villainous Iris Wheeler. Foxtel relaunched the series in 1995 being only 3 months behind the U.S. and continued to air it til its final episode in September 1999. "As the World Turns" is an American soap opera that aired for a short period on Network Ten, first at 1.30 pm, then moved to 5:00 pm before ultimately being dropped entirely in 1987. "General Hospital" is an American soap opera that first aired on the Seven Network in