History of the National Health Service Emergency Ward 10 was first broadcast in 1957 on ITV and ran until 1967 and followed the life and loves of the staff and patients of the fictionalised Oxbridge General. ITV later followed this up with General Hospital which borrowed much from Emergency Ward 10 in terms of its themes and focus. The idea of a medical hospital as a suitable and popular setting for a soap opera continued to take root in the 1980s. Casualty, set in an A&E department, was first broadcast in 1986 and has since become the longest running medical drama in the world. At a
Soap Opera Weekly Soap Opera Weekly Soap Opera Weekly was a weekly magazine covering American daytime soap operas. It featured onscreen and offscreen news about the series, interviews with and articles about performers, storyline summaries and analysis, and related promotional information. Launched in November 1989 by News Corporation with Mimi Torchin as editor-in-chief, "Weekly" began as a sister magazine to "Soap Opera Digest". News Corporation sold the magazine to K-III in 1991. K-III was renamed Primedia, and sold its magazines to Source Interlink in 2007. American Media, Inc. took over Source Interlink's soap magazines in 2011; "Soap Opera Weekly" was closed in 2012.