ratings

Soap operas, also called “soaps” for short, are a continuous work of television drama aired in a serial format. The name for these on-going series came from their early days being broadcast as a weekday radio show, which was sponsored by soap manufacturers such as Procter & Gamble, Colgate-Palmolive and Lever Brothers, and played during a time when most of the listeners would be housewives.

By 1976, daytime television became “TV’s richest market,” at least according to Time magazine, primarily due to the soap operas’ dedicated fan base and growth of several series into a full hour slot, instead of a half-hour. The increase in length of the show allowed producers to essentially double the amount of advertising space available for each episode.

However, since the early 1990s daytime soap operas have been on a steady decline. In the 1991-92 TV season, an average of 6.5 million viewers watched “soaps,” but in the 2009-10 TV season, the number dropped to 1.3 million viewers. No new daytime

Soap operas, also called “soaps” for short, are a continuous work of television drama aired in a serial format. The name for these on-going series came from their early days being broadcast as a weekday radio show, which was sponsored by soap manufacturers such as Procter & Gamble, Colgate-Palmolive and Lever Brothers, and played during a time when most of the listeners would be housewives.

By 1976, daytime television became “TV’s richest market,” at least according to Time magazine, primarily due to the soap operas’ dedicated fan base and growth of several series into a full hour slot, instead of a half-hour. The increase in length of the show allowed producers to essentially double the amount of advertising space available for each episode.

However, since the early 1990s daytime soap operas have been on a steady decline. In the 1991-92 TV season, an average of 6.5 million viewers watched “soaps,” but in the 2009-10 TV season, the number dropped to 1.3 million viewers. No new daytime