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
Soap Opera Digest Award for Outstanding Villainess in a Drama Series – Daytime Soap Opera Digest Award for Outstanding Villainess in a Drama Series – Daytime "The Soap Opera Digest" Award for Outstanding Villainess in a Drama Series – Daytime has been given every year since the first "Soap Opera Digest" Award in 1984 until the award's end in 2005. There were no awards presented in 1987, 2002 or 2004. The category was split up into "Soap Opera Digest" Award for Outstanding Villain/Villainess in a Drama Series – Daytime only in 1993, 1994, and 2000. In the lists below, the winner of the award for each year is shown first, followed by the