CBS Turns Out Guiding Light

I'm sure you've heard the news now that CBS is canceling Guiding Light and I wanted to mention it briefly for several reasons. The Rundown is no soap opera fan - I never even got into Battlestar Galactica, which I'm pretty sure is a space opera (I certainly consider it so; I say "pretty sure" only because I didn't watch it, so I'm not sure if it is generally accepted as such) - but I have nothing against them. When you get right down to it, comic books and pro wrestling are basically soap operas for guys, so I think it's just part of the human condition to crave such serialized drama. At least in America. And Guiding Light was around right from the very start.

When it bows this September, Guiding Light will be 72 years old.

It began as a radio show in 1937. Literally 15-minute advertisements for soap, radio programs like Guiding Light became known as soap operas and they were always aimed squarely at housewives - a once profitable target audience which no longer exists (some 60+% of women, aged 20+ are now in the workforce). For the entirety of TV history, soap operas have been a mainstay... until very recently.

As the years went on, soaps became racier and racier, and though they were never considered anything more than "mindless daytime entertainment," they never aspired to anything else. As one blogger put it, "Soap operas were the closest thing to porn you could get in my day..." and every, last one of us had at least a passing experience with one or more of them throughout our lives. Mine was Days of Our Lives during the Bo and Hope era (the first one). A friend of my mom's got her watching it and when we were home for the summer, both families would get together at least once a week to watch an episode (the "big reveal" episode - or what always promised to be, regardless of how much was actually revealed).

It is somewhat incredible to stop and think that kids being born right now might never know of soap operas. Several of the earlier TV episodes have been lost to antiquity and I can't imagine any of the truly long-lived series will ever see a complete collection in any form, though services such as Hulu may pick one or more up - in fact, a spokesperson said they were looking for another possible venue. And while those kids may not be missing much, it is certainly an historic thing to watch the passing of one of TV's oldest and most venerable shows.

CBS executives said they struggled with the decision, but finally gave it the ax. The final episode of Guiding Light will air September 18^th.

© C Harris Lynn, 2009