April 2 marks the 50th anniversary of the debut of
As The World Turns, the first half-hour soap. Creator
Irna Phillips already had Guiding Light on the air, and
she wanted to expand it from 15 minutes to 30 as early
as 1954, but neither CBS nor Procter & Gamble would OK it.
She kept pushing for a 30-minute soap, so CBS and P&G told
her to create an entirely new soap AS A HALF-HOUR ENTRY.
The thinking behind the reluctance to do a 30-minute soap
was simple: since radio days, soaps had been 15 minutes, and
no one except Ms. Phillips believed viewers would sit still
for the extra length (by the early '70s she believed that hour-
long soaps could work but she died before another of her creations,
Another World, became the first soap to go to an hour in 1975).
At any rate, ATWT debuted at 1:30 PM (ET) on April 2, 1956. Two
years later, it became the number-one daytime soap and held that
position for twenty years. Its real heyday was in the '60s, when
Eileen Fulton's character, Lisa, was the Susan Lucci/Erica Kane of
that era. At one point ATWT was getting a 57 share, and ABC and
NBC didn't bother to program against it (which helps explain why
CBS was first with the bulletin that John F. Kennedy had been shot--
Walter Cronkite interrupted ATWT at 1:40 on November 22, 1963, while
ABC and NBC were down). When NBC moved Let's Make A Deal from 2:00
to 1:30 in 1964, ATWT's ratings dropped a bit.
But ATWT, which has aired at 2 since 1987 (and, briefly, in 1980-81),
still wins its time slot, against ABC's One Life To Live and NBC's
Passions.
Also on April 2, 1956, the second half-hour soap, The Edge Of Night,
debuted on CBS at 4:30 (ET). This was an outgrowth of the Perry Mason
radio show which, believe it or not, was a soap. When CBS wanted to
move Mason to television, creator Erle Stanley Gardner wanted to do a
straight whodunit, so head writer Irving Vendig created a new lawyer
character, Mike Karr, and cast the radio Mason, John Larkin, as Karr.
Because Edge emphasized cops and lawyers, and because of its late-afternoon
time slot (until 1963), it attracted a huge number of male viewers.
A couple of time changes (to 3:30 in 1963 and 2:30 in 1972) caused a
drop in the ratings, but the real reason CBS dropped Edge in 1975 was
the expansion of As The World Turns to an hour. Edge then became the
first soap to change networks, to ABC (the only P&G soap ABC has ever
aired), which put it on at 4 PM, only to face numerous pre-emptions or
delays to morning slots; that is what killed Edge in 1984. Yet many
soap fans would like to see Edge again; SoapNet really ought to run it.
As The World Turns, the first half-hour soap. Creator
Irna Phillips already had Guiding Light on the air, and
she wanted to expand it from 15 minutes to 30 as early
as 1954, but neither CBS nor Procter & Gamble would OK it.
She kept pushing for a 30-minute soap, so CBS and P&G told
her to create an entirely new soap AS A HALF-HOUR ENTRY.
The thinking behind the reluctance to do a 30-minute soap
was simple: since radio days, soaps had been 15 minutes, and
no one except Ms. Phillips believed viewers would sit still
for the extra length (by the early '70s she believed that hour-
long soaps could work but she died before another of her creations,
Another World, became the first soap to go to an hour in 1975).
At any rate, ATWT debuted at 1:30 PM (ET) on April 2, 1956. Two
years later, it became the number-one daytime soap and held that
position for twenty years. Its real heyday was in the '60s, when
Eileen Fulton's character, Lisa, was the Susan Lucci/Erica Kane of
that era. At one point ATWT was getting a 57 share, and ABC and
NBC didn't bother to program against it (which helps explain why
CBS was first with the bulletin that John F. Kennedy had been shot--
Walter Cronkite interrupted ATWT at 1:40 on November 22, 1963, while
ABC and NBC were down). When NBC moved Let's Make A Deal from 2:00
to 1:30 in 1964, ATWT's ratings dropped a bit.
But ATWT, which has aired at 2 since 1987 (and, briefly, in 1980-81),
still wins its time slot, against ABC's One Life To Live and NBC's
Passions.
Also on April 2, 1956, the second half-hour soap, The Edge Of Night,
debuted on CBS at 4:30 (ET). This was an outgrowth of the Perry Mason
radio show which, believe it or not, was a soap. When CBS wanted to
move Mason to television, creator Erle Stanley Gardner wanted to do a
straight whodunit, so head writer Irving Vendig created a new lawyer
character, Mike Karr, and cast the radio Mason, John Larkin, as Karr.
Because Edge emphasized cops and lawyers, and because of its late-afternoon
time slot (until 1963), it attracted a huge number of male viewers.
A couple of time changes (to 3:30 in 1963 and 2:30 in 1972) caused a
drop in the ratings, but the real reason CBS dropped Edge in 1975 was
the expansion of As The World Turns to an hour. Edge then became the
first soap to change networks, to ABC (the only P&G soap ABC has ever
aired), which put it on at 4 PM, only to face numerous pre-emptions or
delays to morning slots; that is what killed Edge in 1984. Yet many
soap fans would like to see Edge again; SoapNet really ought to run it.