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Lien Hughes
''As the World Turns'' (often abbreviated as ''ATWT'') is an American television soap opera that aired on CBS for 54 years from April 2, 1956, to September 17, 2010. Irna Phillips created ''As the World Turns'' as a sister show to her other soap opera ''Guiding Light''. With 13,763 hours of cumulative narrative, ''As the World Turns'' has the longest total running time of any television show. In terms of continuous run of production, ''As the World Turns'' at 54 years holds the fourth-longest run of any daytime network soap opera on American television, surpassed only by ''General Hospital'', ''Guiding Light'', and ''Days of Our Lives''. ''As the World Turns'' was produced for its first 43 years in Manhattan and in Brooklyn from 2000 until 2010. Set in the fictional town of Oakdale, Illinois, the show debuted on April 2, 1956, at 1:30 p.m. EST, airing as a 30-minute serial. Prior to that date, all serials had been 15 minutes in length. ''As the World Turns'' and ''The Edge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soap Opera
A soap opera, or ''soap'' for short, is a typically long-running radio or television serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored by soap manufacturers.Bowles, p. 118. The term was preceded by "horse opera", a derogatory term for low-budget Westerns. BBC Radio's ''The Archers'', first broadcast in 1950, is the world's longest-running radio soap opera. The longest-running current television soap is '' Coronation Street'', which was first broadcast on ITV in 1960, with the record for the longest running soap opera in history being held by '' Guiding Light'', which began on radio in 1937, transitioned to television in 1952, and ended in 2009. A crucial element that defines the soap opera is the open-ended serial nature of the narrative, with stories spanning several episodes. One of the defining features that makes a television program a soap opera, according to Alber ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
