Which soaps were popular in your area?

[danderson6500]

I'd say Another World and The Doctors in the late 60s/early 70s in Asheville/Greenville; not sure about others. What sudsers were popular in your market?

 

[CTListener]

Were there really regional differences in soap popularity?

 

[gr8oldies]

For years, General Hospital was not carried in Dayton, Ohio (even when network affiliations changed). That was even during the time when no one could stop talking about Luke and Laura.

 

[danderson6500]

Days of Our Lives was/is quite popular in the Asheville/Greenville same thing with Another World.

In Birmingham, One Life to Live was popular too; General Hospital was too. I believe at one point, the 4 most popular shows there were OLTL, GH, The Price Is Right and To Tell The Truth. In Asheville, likely DOOL, AW, Concentration(with Hugh Downs or Bob Clayton) and Jeopardy(with Art Fleming). Maybe The Doctors too.

 

[crainbebo]

Basically, the popularity of soaps seems to base on how many episodes I've found on VHS at local estate sales. So far, Days of Our Lives is the leader. I have found more episodes of Days taped off KNDO, than other soaps from the other stations. I have a 1987 episode where KNDO does a local promo - 'stay tuned for Yakima's number one daytime drama, Days of Our Lives...' Very occasionally I've found Another World or Passions. I've found five KNDO-taped episodes of AW (partial or full) including a couple July 1981 clips!

Next is Guiding Light, followed by ATWT and Y&R (KIMA of course). Most of my ABC soaps besides a few full All My Children's (and a few partial), one full One Life to Live, and two General Hospital's, came from out-of-market affiliates and not KAPP. Loving was cleared here for a while in the '80s but not in the early '90s, I've never found any episodes taped locally or otherwise. Port Charles has only been found from out-of-market lots (specifically, 1998 episodes taped off KXLY). Nothing from The City. Also nothing from the NBC Search for Tomorrow, Ryan's Hope on ABC, Capitol on CBS. All three were cleared here in the mid '80s.

 

[johnothy]

In Central and Western Indiana, the CBS soaps were always dominant in the 80s and 90s. The NBC station (WTHR) juggled the soaps around over the years eventually airing Another World and Days of Our Lives in the morning. The ABC station (WRTV) shifted the soaps up one hour to use the Central time zone schedule with it being a day behind half the year when Indiana was on Eastern time. This move gave them better ratings for awhile. Growing up, my grandma always had CBS on so those were the only ones I knew. I wasn't familiar with the soaps on ABC or NBC back then and never had them on.