Supposdely, "General Hospital"'s ratings, which had been strong for years, fell after it was expanded in the 1970's from a half-hour to first, 45 minutes and then, an hour in rapid succession.
But under Gloria Monty, "GH"'s ratings rose to such an extent that by 1981, it was the highest-rated daytime soap opera in television history to that point. No soap since has ever approached the kind of numbers "GH" attracted on a regular basis during the early 1980's.
Monty also introduced the use of more contemporary music in the soundtracks of daytime soaps (by the late 1970's, organ music was long gone from TV soaps, but the recorded incidental music that had replaced the organ on TV soaps still seemed dated), a faster pace in plots (once upon a time, you only had to watch a soap one day a week and find out everything that happened; under Gloria Monty, if you missed a day of "GH", you sometimes missed a lot), and location footage (almost unheard-of in soaps at the time but now standard procedure).
A strong case can be made for calling Gloria Monty "The mother of modern daytime soap operas" (or, if you prefer, "The mother of modern daytime drama").
