There are currently only four soap operas still airing: The Bold and The Beautiful, Days of Our Lives, General Hospital, and The Young and The Restless. In order to ensure a show’s continuation, they must attract a younger audience.

Once extremely popular with housewives, as women found their way into the workforce, these shows have seen their ratings plummet and are not facing cancelation.Īccording to Nielsen ratings, soap operas are attracting an older, female audience but not gaining the coveted demographics of younger viewers. Some of the longest running shows on television are soap operas, those daytime television staples that so many grew up on. It’s been a long time since the first soap opera, These Are My Children, aired in 1949 in Chicago. It’s not a secret that the demographics for these shows, the female 18-49 year olds, are highly coveted and once belonged to a whole different genre: soap operas. Lots of people love to keep up with the Kardashians or to check in on The Bachelor but reality television shows weren’t always a presence like they are now.

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