General Hospital (UK TV series) productions to fill in the extended schedules. Among the first of these shows, which were aimed at giving advertisers access to housewives, were the long-running rural soap "Emmerdale Farm" (YTV) and the twice-weekly medical drama "General Hospital". Set in a fictional Midlands town, the series followed the romantic and professional lives of its doctors and nurses. While the location and the characters names had been changed, in most other respects "General Hospital" was almost identical to its predecessor, "Emergency – Ward 10", a deliberate attempt to recreate its success. In 1975, after 270 twice-weekly episodes, "General Hospital" was given a
Soap opera soap opera advertisers pay the most for. Those who might watch in workplace breakrooms are not counted, as Nielsen does not track television viewing outside the home. The rise of cable and the internet has also provided new sources of entertainment during the day. The genre's decline has additionally been attributed to reality television displacing soap operas as TV's dominant form of melodrama. An early term for the reality TV genre was "docu-soap". A precursor to reality TV, the televised 1994–95 O. J. Simpson murder case, both preempted and competed with an entire season of soaps, transforming viewing habits and