Intro: “TV’s Richest Market”

Before Kate and William’s royal wedding, there was Luke and Laura’s marriage on General Hospital. In 1981, the long-awaited union of two fictional characters drew 30 million viewers—still the most-watched episode in daytime television history, exceeding that week’s Monday Night Football audience by 10 million households. The event was further elevated by a surprise cameo from legendary movie star Elizabeth Taylor, who personally requested an appearance in the wedding extravaganza.

In 1996, TV Guide ranked Luke and Laura’s wedding as #35 on its list of the “100 Most Memorable Moments in TV History”—cementing the event as a cultural high point for the daytime soap opera.

In the 1970s and 1980s, watching television between noon and 3 p.m. meant watching a soap opera. At their peak, close to 20 soap series ran concurrently across four television networks, dominating daytime programming. In 1976, Time magazine described the daytime soap as “TV’s richest market” due to the loyalty of its fanbase and the advertising revenue generated from its captive audience.

Today, the soap opera teeters on the brink of extinction, with three series still airing on network television and a fourth relegated to Peacock (a totally real streaming service best known for Love Island USA and The Office, and that’s it). Watching TV at noon on a Tuesday is no longer synonymous with Days of Our Lives or The Young and the Restless—and if you’ve never heard of these series, then you’ve further proved my point.

So today, we’ll examine the decline of the soap opera and identify the programming that took its place.

What Happened to the Soap Opera?

TV soap operas got their start in the most unlikely of places: the radio. Debuting in 1930, the first radio soap series told the story of three sorority sisters—Clara, Lu, and Em—as they navigated the ups and downs of daily life. These operatic tales were frequently sponsored by household brands—especially soap makers like Procter & Gamble—which led to the now-ubiquitous “soap opera” moniker.

Since its transition to network television, the soap opera has remained remarkably consistent for more than 70 years, even as other TV genres evolved with the advent of cable and streaming. Along the way, countless shows have borrowed (and reinvented) storytelling tropes pioneered by the soap format. Today, the defining criteria for what constitutes a soap