CBS is turning off its "Guiding Light." After nearly three-quarters of a century on TV and radio, the serial drama about the intertwining lives of fictional families from different classes in the bucolic but placeless town of Springfield, will end its run in September. It is the latest example of the fragmentation of television.
Created as a 15-minute radio show in the grip of the Great Depression for a sponsor to sell soap to housewives -- hence the name "soap operas" -- "Guiding Light" struggled in recent years as its audience grew older, smaller and, for advertisers, less desirable. Show producers recently tried to revamp the program to give it an edgier, reality-show hipness, but the makeover couldn't stop the ebb of viewers.
"Talk about a grand old oak falling in the forest," television historian Tim Brooks said. "But there's not much forest left."
Once a mainstay of TV and one of the industry's most reliable and profitable genres, daytime dramas have slowly been getting scrubbed out of the network picture. Gone are a playbill of soaps with evocative names such as "Another World," "Santa Barbara," "Sunset Beach," Port Charles" and "Passions" -- all victims of a redrawing of the American workforce and the makeup of the daytime audience.
The target audience of soaps -- stay-at-home moms busy with the ironing and other chores -- has eroded as more women have joined the workforce. About 60% of women age 20 and older -- nearly 68 million women -- have jobs, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Fifty years ago, 63% stayed at home.
And when they are home, most women are tuning in elsewhere.
Soap operas' favorite themes of love, jealousy, betrayal and riches are now mined more sensationally on cable television, which doesn't contend with the same regulatory restrictions as broadcast television. Sassier reality shows such as MTV's "Dissed" and "Sex . . . With Mom and Dad," which borrow the pathos of soaps, are increasingly attracting the younger audience that advertisers want to reach.
"The real shift in daytime drama came in the 1990s," said Sally Sussman Morina, a former head writer on "Days of Our Lives" and creator of the soap "Generations," which ran for two seasons on NBC. "Daytime dramas used to be ahead of their time by tackling important social issues as part of their stories."
