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The Rise and Fall of Soap Operas

Hope for the Future of Soap Operas?

Soap operas are some of the oldest and most reliable institutions of television dramas. We all know the hallmarks. There’s extreme melodrama, romance, overacting, implausible storylines, etc. They were some of the original guilty pleasure shows. Their daily airings, coupled with decades-long lifespans, mean that many of the big-name operas have aired thousands and thousands of episodes. In recent years, soap operas have mostly died out in popularity, with only a few remaining on the broadcast networks. As the last new entry debuted in 1999, it seemed unlikely that we’d ever see a debut title again.
But CBS still has faith in one of television’s oldest hallmarks. On February 24, they will premiere the brand-new soap opera Beyond the Gates. It’s set to run in the daytime alongside soap stalwarts The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful. But why now? In an era when broadcast TV as a whole is rapidly losing the war with streaming, why reinvest in antiquated soap operas, of all things? Let’s take a look at some of the reasons why soaps died out in the late 2000s and early 2010s and why CBS thinks it’s the right time to give it another try.
The Rise and Fall of Soap Operas

The first modern soap opera is generally believed to be NBC’s These Are My Children, which ran for about a month in early 1949. They got their name because their radio drama predecessors were often sponsored by soap manufacturers. The terms “soapy” and “sudsy” have since evolved to describe the over-the-top melodrama that’s become a daytime show staple. The 1950s saw the first titles that would go on to become massive hits, such as Guiding Light and As the World Turns.
The former actually debuted back in 1937 as a radio drama before jumping to TV in 1952. The ’60s through ’80s were arguably soap opera’s Golden Era. General Hospital, Days of Our Lives, The Young and the Restless, Another World, One Life to Live, The Bold and the Beautiful, and All My Children are just some of the iconic titles that dominated those decades. By the ’90s, soap operas began to show their age. The last new entry, NBC’s Passions, launched in the summer of 1999 and ended in September 2007.

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The late 2000s and early 2010s dealt the death blow to nearly every remaining soap. Between 2009 and 2012, Guiding Light was extinguished, As the World Turns no longer turned, All My Children left home, and One Life to Live stopped living. All of these shows had aired daily for between 40 and 50 years. OLTL and AMC were briefly revived in 2013 for online streaming but ended again soon after. And in 2022, NBC banished Days of Our Lives to Peacock after 57 years on broadcast TV. Is moving to streaming really the best decision when the bulk of your audience is over 70?
Soap operas’ decline was due to a variety of factors. Ratings had been steadily decreasing for decades. In the early years, the target audience of women frequently watched daytime television at home. However, as times changed and more women began to work outside the home, those viewers were lost. While the broadcast networks were originally the only major channels, they soon had to contend with competition from cable and the Internet. Networks found that reality and game shows could be produced and aired during the same timeslots at a fraction of the cost. Soap operas just couldn’t keep up.
Hope for the Future of Soap Operas?

Today, just four daytime soaps remain. ABC has General Hospital, CBS has The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful, and Peacock has Days of Our Lives. Collectively, these four shows have over 50,000 episodes. So, it’s not the best for a quick binge-watch. They all seem relatively safe as of now, with The Young and the Restless in particular renewed through 2028. But there hasn’t been a new entry in 26 years. And with multiple long-running prestige shows not even safe, why would any network take a chance on a new soap?

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Well, CBS is. Beyond the Gates is set to premiere on February 24. It’s the first new soap since 1999 and CBS’ first since Bold & Beautiful launched in 1987. Set in an affluent suburb in Maryland, the show follows a wealthy, multi-generational Black family. Ironically, The Talk was canceled to make room on the schedule for Beyond the Gates. This was after The Talk itself debuted in 2010 as a lower-cost replacement for As the World Turns. Beyond the Gates is also the first soap to follow a predominantly African-American cast since NBC’s Generations from 1989 to 1991.
A new soap opera launching on daytime broadcast television in 2025 defies almost every convention about modern viewing habits and methods. But CBS apparently still has faith in TV’s most antiquated genre. If Beyond the Gates does well, could we see other networks launch new soap titles? It’s possible, but unlikely. Soap operas are still a shadow of what they were 70 years ago, and not every network would be willing to take that risk. A more likely result is that Beyond the Gates performing well could ensure that ABC and CBS keep their existing soaps on the air well into the future. But if the newest member of the soap family doesn’t have characters come back from the dead, get amnesia or age 10 years in a month, then what was even the point? Beyond the Gates will premiere on CBS on February 24.