Last Updated on January 31, 2018
CBS has announced that the soap that became television’s longest-running following this year’s cancellation of Guiding Light will be the next one to fade to black for the last time.
As the World Turns will air its final episode in September of 2010. The show premiered in April of 1956, and when it goes off the air, it will have been on for 54 years.
And there’s one more milestone worth mentioning: Helen Wagner, 91, who has portrayed the role of Nancy Hughes since the show’s premiere and spoke the first line in the series, holds the record as portraying the longest-running character in television history.
In fact, when Walter Cronkite interrupted regular programming to announce that President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas on November 22, 1963, it was As the World Turns that he interrupted, and, more specifically, one of Wagner’s scenes that fell victim to the unfolding tragedy as television dealt with the birth of breaking news as we now know it.
Earlier this year, CBS canceled Guiding Light after a run that spanned 72 years on radio and television, replacing it with a cheaper-to-produce game show, Let’s Make a Deal.  Speculation — no one’s confirming anything other than the cancellation — is that another game show may take World’s place.
It’s always sad to see a show that has had this long a run come to a close, but it’s the nature of the beast:  falling ratings mean falling revenue, and soaps are expensive to make.  And in this economy, an expensive show without good numbers isn’t likely to be kept around solely on the basis of nostalgia.
The look of daytime network TV is changing rapidly.
I wonder if the reason these old soaps are being taken behind the barn is that they’re not attracting the right kind of audience. They may not resonate as well with the 20-30 crowd. You know, young moms etc. Perhaps the networks are hoping to replace the shows with something else that will become popular among the young adults of today and stay with them till their golden years.
I doubt that will work, though…the world has changed too much. Or turned, as the case may be.
Now we have soaps on prime time: Grey’s Anatomy is a prime example.
I don’t watch soaps. but I can’t stand game shows. It’s OK, I don’t watch TV during the daytime hours anyhow.