1970s in American television
Another popular medium in U.S. television moving into the 1970s was soap operas, which moved from being a genre watched exclusively by housewives to having a sizable audience of men (who largely watched The Edge of Night) and college students. The latter audience helped All My Children gain a devoted following, as it was on during many universities' traditional "lunch period." In a TIME article written about the genre in 1976, it was estimated that as many as 35 million households tuned into at least one soap opera each afternoon, the most popular being As the World Turns. It routinely grabbed viewing figures of twelve million or higher each day.