After 72 years, CBS to pull plug on "Guiding Light"

HOLLYWOOD — CBS is turning off its "Guiding Light," the longest-running show in broadcast history.

After nearly three-quarters of a century on television and radio, the serial drama about the intertwining lives of fictional families from different classes in the bucolic but placeless town of Springfield will end its run in September. It is the latest example of the fragmentation of television.

Created as a 15-minute radio show in the grip of the Great Depression for a sponsor to sell soap to housewives — hence the name "soap operas" — "Guiding Light" struggled in recent years as its audience grew older, smaller and, for advertisers, less desirable. Show producers recently tried to revamp the program to give it an edgier, reality-show hipness, but the makeover could not stop the ebb of viewers.

"Talk about a grand old oak falling in the forest," TV historian Tim Brooks said. "But there's not much forest left."

Once a mainstay of TV and one of the industry's most reliable and profitable genres, daytime dramas slowly have been scrubbed out of the network picture. Gone are a playbill of soaps with evocative names such as "Another World," "Santa Barbara," "Sunset Beach," "Port Charles" and "Passions" — all victims of a redrawing of the U.S. workforce and the makeup of the daytime audience.

The soaps' target audience — stay-at-home moms busy with ironing and other chores — has eroded as more women have joined the workforce. About 60 percent of women age 20 and older — nearly 68 million — have jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Fifty years ago, 63 percent stayed at home. When they are home, they tune in elsewhere.

Soap operas' favorite themes of love, jealousy, betrayal and riches now are mined more sensationally on cable television, which doesn't contend with the same regulatory restrictions as broadcast television. Sassier reality shows such as MTV's "Dissed" and "Sex ... with Mom and Dad," which borrow the pathos of soaps, increasingly are attracting the younger audience that advertisers want to reach.

"The real shift in daytime drama came in the 1990s," said Sally Sussman Morina, a former head writer of "Days of Our Lives" and creator of the soap "Generations" that ran two seasons on NBC. "Daytime dramas used to be ahead of their time by tackling important social issues as part of their stories."

Daytime soaps delved into topics once considered taboo for prime time, including adultery, rape, abortion, homosexuality and AIDS. The shows hit their zenith in the early 1980s when 30 million people tuned in for the marriage of Luke and Laura on ABC's "General Hospital."

"But then all of these other shows came along — 'Jerry Springer,' and 'Oprah,' and all the reality shows — and suddenly they were interviewing your next-door neighbor who was a transvestite sleeping with his sister," Sussman Morina said. "Cutting edge got away from us."

And daytime themes moved into prime time, first with "Dallas" and "Dynasty," and now with "Desperate Housewives" and "Brothers & Sisters." That offered women a weekly dose of their serialized drama.

"Guiding Light" is owned by Procter & Gamble, maker of Ivory, Tide, Mr. Clean and Crest toothpaste. P&G's TeleNext Media, which produces the show, said Wednesday it would try to find a new home for the program, created in 1937. The radio show made the switch to CBS television in 1952, and expanded to one hour in 1977.

CBS executives said they agonized over the decision.

"We held off as long as we could out of respect for the show because of its place in CBS history as well as the history of television," said Nancy Tellem, president of CBS Paramount Network Television Entertainment Group. "But neither P&G nor we could make sense of it financially as the ratings continued to decline."

Ten years ago, "Guiding Light" was attracting nearly 5 million viewers an episode. This season, it has been mustering a mere 2.17 million. The median age of its audience is 56.5 years, according to Nielsen, a group not in favor with advertisers.

In addition, unlike daytime talk shows, soap operas are more expensive to produce because producers and writers must churn out an hourlong episode five days a week — a punishing schedule that leads to burnout.

Despite an ambitious overhaul of the show's production, including switching to handheld digital cameras and outdoor location shots, "that didn't reflect any bump in the ratings," Tellem said.

Still, Tellem said he believes soaps are not washed up. The network's "Young and the Restless" attracts an average of 5.26 million viewers an episode, and "Bold and the Beautiful" has been fetching an average 3.65 million viewers. Walt Disney's SoapNet cable channel just posted one of its best quarters ever in the ratings.

For soaps, it's now survival of the fittest.

The "Guiding Light" staff of about 100 learned their show was being canceled Wednesday when they showed up for work. For a cast and crew that deal with fictional deaths and trauma on a daily basis, the sense of loss suddenly was real.

"This show has been here since before World War II," executive producer Ellen Wheeler said. "It has gone through wars and tragedies and triumphs — man walking on the moon, and the dawn of the computer age. This show chronicled all these changes in society. It has been our mirror on society for generations, and when you lose something that is part of the fabric of society you lose something precious."