Soap opera
A soap opera is a genre of a long-running radio or television serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term soap opera originated from radio dramas' original sponsorship by soap manufacturers. The term was preceded by horse opera, a derogatory term for low-budget Westerns. Some authorities exclude short-running serial dramas from their definition.
BBC Radio's The Archers, first broadcast in 1950, is the world's longest-running soap opera. The longest-running television soap opera is Coronation Street, which was first broadcast on ITV in 1960.
According to Albert Moran, one of the defining features that make a television program a soap opera is "that form of television that works with a continuous open narrative. Each episode ends with a promise that the storyline is to be continued in another episode". In 2012, Los Angeles Times columnist Robert Lloyd wrote of daily dramas:
Soap opera storylines run concurrently, intersect and lead into further developments. An individual episode of a soap opera will generally switch between several concurrent narrative threads that may at times interconnect and affect one another or may run entirely independently of each other. Episodes may feature some of the show's storylines, but not always all of them. Especially in daytime serials and those that are broadcast each weekday, there is some rotation of both storyline and actors, so any given storyline or actor will appear in some but usually not all of a week's worth of episodes. Soap operas seldom conclude all their storylines at the same time. When one story thread ends, there are several others at differing stages of development. Soap opera episodes typically end on some sort of cliffhanger, as does the season finale, the tension only to be resolved when the show returns for the start of a new yearly broadcast.
Evening soap operas and those that air at a rate of one episode per week are more likely to feature the entire cast in each episode and present all storylines. Evening soap operas and serials that run for only part of the year tend to bring things to a dramatic end-of-season cliffhanger.
In 1976, Time magazine described American daytime television as "TV's richest market", noting the loyalty of the soap opera fan base and the expansion of several half-hour series into hour-long broadcasts to maximise advertising revenues. At that time, many prime time series lost money, while daytime serials earned profits several times more than their production costs. The issue's cover notably featured its first daytime soap stars, Bill Hayes and Susan Seaforth Hayes of Days of Our Lives, a married couple whose onscreen and real-life romance was widely covered by both the soap opera magazines and the mainstream press at large.
Origin and history of the genre
The first program generally considered to be a "soap opera" or daytime serial by scholars of the genre is Painted Dreams, written by and starring Irna Phillips, which premiered on WGN radio Chicago, on October 20, 1930. It was regularly broadcast in a daytime time slot, where most listeners would be housewives; thus, the shows were aimed at – and consumed by – a predominantly female audience. Clara, Lu, 'n Em would become the first network radio serial of the type when it aired on the NBC Blue Network at 10:30 p.m. Eastern Time on January 27, 1931. Although it did not make the move until February 15, 1932, Clara, Lu 'n Em would become the first network serial of the type to move to a weekday daily timeslot; as such, it also became the first network daytime serial.Plots and storylines
The main characteristics that define soap operas are "an emphasis on family life, personal relationships, sexual dramas, emotional and moral conflicts; some coverage of topical issues; set in familiar domestic interiors with only occasional excursions into new locations". Fitting in with these characteristics, most soap operas follow the lives of a group of characters who live or work in a particular place, or focus on a large extended family. The storylines follow the day-to-day activities and personal relationships of these characters. "Soap narratives, like those of film melodramas, are marked by what Steve Neale has described as 'chance happenings, coincidences, missed meetings, sudden conversions, last-minute rescues and revelations, deus ex machina endings. These elements may be found across the gamut of soap operas, from EastEnders to Dallas.In many soap operas, in particular daytime serials in the United States, the characters are frequently attractive, seductive, glamorous and wealthy. Soap operas from the United Kingdom and Australia tend to focus on more everyday characters and situations and are frequently set in working-class environments. Many of the soaps produced in those two countries explore social realist storylines such as family discord, marriage breakdown or financial problems. Both British and Australian soap operas feature comedic elements, often affectionate comic stereotypes such as the gossip or the grumpy old man, presented as a comic foil to the emotional turmoil that surrounds them. This diverges from American soap operas where such comedy is rare. British soap operas frequently make a claim to presenting "reality" or purport to have a "realistic" style. British soap operas also frequently foreground their geographic location as a key defining feature of the show while depicting and capitalising on the exotic appeal of the stereotypes connected to the location. As examples, EastEnders focuses on the tough and grim life in the East End of London; Coronation Street and its characters exhibit the stereotypical characteristic of "northern straight talking".
Romance, secret relationships, extramarital affairs, and genuine hate have been the basis for many soap opera storylines. In American daytime serials, the most popular soap opera characters, and the most popular storylines, often involved a romance of the sort presented in paperback romance novels. Soap opera storylines weave intricate, convoluted and sometimes confusing tales of characters who have affairs, meet mysterious strangers and fall in love, and who commit adultery, all of which keeps audiences hooked on the unfolding story. Crimes such as kidnapping, assault, and even murder may go unpunished if the perpetrator is to be retained in the ongoing story.
Australian and British soap operas also feature a significant proportion of romance storylines. In Russia, most popular serials explore the "romantic quality" of criminal and/or oligarch life.
In soap opera storylines, previously unknown children, siblings and twins of established characters often emerge to upset and reinvigorate the set of relationships examined by the series. Unexpected calamities disrupt weddings, childbirths, and other major life events with unusual frequency.
As in comic books – another popular form of linear storytelling pioneered in the United States during the 20th century – a character's death is not guaranteed to be permanent. On The Bold and the Beautiful, Taylor Hayes was shown to flatline and have a funeral. Once Tylo reprised her character in 2005, a retcon explained that Taylor had actually gone into a coma.
Stunts and complex physical action are largely absent, especially from daytime serials. Such story events often take place off-screen and are referred to in dialogue instead of being shown. This is because stunts or action scenes are difficult to adequately depict without complex movements, multiple takes, and post-production editing. When episodes were broadcast live, post-production work was impossible. Though all serials have long switched to being taped, extensive post-production work and multiple takes, while possible, are not feasible due to the tight taping schedules and low budgets.
United States
Daytime serials on television
The first daytime TV soap opera in the United States was These Are My Children in 1949, though earlier melodramas had aired in the evenings as once-a-week programs. Soap operas quickly became a fixture of American daytime television in the early 1950s, joined by game shows, sitcom reruns and talk shows.In 1988, H. Wesley Kenney, who at the time served as the executive producer of General Hospital, said to The New York Times:
Many long-running American soap operas established particular environments for their stories. The Doctors and General Hospital, in the beginning, told stories almost exclusively from inside the confines of a hospital. As the World Turns dealt heavily with Chris Hughes' law practice and the travails of his wife Nancy who, tired of being "the loyal housewife" in the 1970s, became one of the first older women on the American serials to enter the workforce. Guiding Light dealt with Bert Bauer and her alcoholic husband Bill, and their endless marital troubles. When Bert's status shifted to caring mother and town matriarch, her children's marital troubles were showcased. Search for Tomorrow mostly told its story through the eyes of Joanne Gardner. Even when stories revolved around other characters, Joanne was frequently a key player in their storylines. Days of Our Lives initially focused on Dr. Tom Horton and his steadfast wife Alice. The show later branched out to focus more on their five children. The Edge of Night featured as its central character Mike Karr, a police detective, and largely dealt with organized crime. The Young and the Restless first focused on two families, the prosperous Brooks family with four daughters, and the working-class Foster family of a single working mother with three children. Its storylines explored realistic problems including cancer, mental illness, poverty, and infidelity.
In contrast, Dark Shadows, Port Charles and Passions featured supernatural characters and dealt with fantasy and horror storylines. Their characters included vampires, witches, ghosts, goblins, and angels.
The American soap opera Guiding Light started as a radio drama in January 1937 and subsequently began transitioning to television in June 1952; the television and radio editions of the serial continued to broadcast concurrently until the latter version ended production in 1956. With the exception of several years in the late 1940s, during which creator Irna Phillips was involved in a dispute with Procter & Gamble, Guiding Light was heard or seen nearly every weekday from 1937 to 2009, making it the longest story ever told in a broadcast medium.
Originally, serials were broadcast as 15-minute installments each weekday in daytime slots. In 1956, As the World Turns and The Edge of Night, both produced by Procter & Gamble Productions, debuted as the first half-hour soap operas on the CBS television network. All soap operas broadcast half-hour episodes by the end of the 1960s. With increased popularity in the 1970s, most soap operas had expanded to an hour in length by the end of the decade. More than half of the serials had expanded to one-hour episodes by 1980. As of 2025, four of the five American serials air one-hour episodes each weekday; only The Bold and the Beautiful airs 30-minute episodes.
Soap operas were broadcast live from the studio, creating what many at the time regarded as a feeling similar to that of a stage play. As nearly all soap operas were originated at that time from New York City, a number of soap actors were also accomplished stage actors who performed live theater during breaks from their soap roles. In the 1960s and 1970s, new serials such as General Hospital, Days of Our Lives, and The Young and the Restless were produced in Los Angeles. Their success made the West Coast a viable alternative to New York-produced soap operas, which were becoming more costly to perform. By the early 1970s, nearly all soap operas had transitioned to being taped. As the World Turns and The Edge of Night were the last to make the switch, in 1975.
Port Charles used the practice of running 13-week "story arcs," in which the main events of the arc are played out and wrapped up over the 13 weeks, although some storylines did continue over more than one arc. According to the 2006 Preview issue of Soap Opera Digest, it was briefly discussed that all ABC shows might do telenovela arcs, but this was rejected.
Though American daytime soap operas are not generally rerun by their networks, occasionally they are rebroadcast elsewhere; CBS and ABC have made exceptions to this, airing older episodes on major holidays when special event programming is not scheduled or because of last-minute deferrals of scheduled episodes to the following day because of breaking news coverage. Early episodes of Dark Shadows were rerun on PBS member stations in the early 1970s after the show's cancellation, and the entire series was rerun on the Sci-Fi Channel in the 1990s. After The Edge of Night 1984 cancellation, reruns of the show's final five years were shown late nights on USA Network from 1985 to 1989. On January 20, 2000, a digital cable and satellite network dedicated to the genre, Soapnet, began re-airing soaps that aired on ABC, NBC and CBS.
Newer broadcast networks launched since the late 1980s and cable television networks have largely eschewed offering soap operas on their daytime schedules, instead running syndicated programming and reruns. No cable television outlet has produced its own daytime serial, although DirecTV's The 101 Network took over existing serial Passions, continuing production for one season; while TBS and CBN Cable Network respectively aired their own soap operas, The Catlins and Another Life, during the 1980s. Fox, the fourth "major network", carried a short-lived daytime soap Tribes in 1990. Yet, other than this and a couple of pilot attempts, Fox mainly stayed away from daytime soaps, and has not attempted them since their ascension to major-network status in 1994.
Due to the masses of episodes produced for a series, release of soap operas to DVD is considered impractical. With the exception of occasional specials, daytime soap operas are notable by their absence from DVD release schedules.