It's Sad to Watch A Genre's Death Spiral

[shipperx]

And now there are only seven...

Official Network Release:

'Guiding Light'  Concludes in September After A 72-Year History of Drama


Guiding Light, the longest running show in broadcast history, will complete its final season on the CBS Television Network in September. The daytime drama was not renewed by CBS for the 2009/2010 broadcast season, marking the end of its 57 year run on the Network.


GL launched the careers of several Hollywood personalities, dramatized relevant social issues and has been awarded numerous accolades, including an unprecedented 69 Daytime Emmy awards.

"Being on the air for more than seven decades is truly remarkable, and it will be difficult for all of us at the show to say goodbye," said Executive Producer Ellen Wheeler. "I'm proud of everything we've been able to do, including outstanding storytelling, our community service around the country with Find Your Light and the launch of our new production model. This show has such a rich history, wonderful fans, and I'm honored to have been a part of the GL legacy."


Guiding Light has led daytime and prime-time drama programming in covering a range of topical and timeless issues. The show dramatized important social issues such as discrimination against women in the 1940s and teen alcoholism and drug abuse in the 1980s. The show has also raised awareness about the effects of real-life medical conditions such as uterine cancer, postpartum depression, AIDS, Down syndrome, leukemia and breast cancer.


"We are honored to have been welcomed into the homes of multiple generations of Guiding Light viewers," said Brian T. Cahill, Senior Vice President and Managing Director, TeleNext Media, Inc. "We are working hard to find the show a new home, and we are exploring all our options to continue to bring loyal fans the characters and stories they love."


Guiding Light debuted as a 15-minute radio show in 1937 and made the move to television in 1952. The show began broadcasting in color in the spring of 1967, expanded to 30 minutes the following year and to a full hour in 1977. Guiding Light was the first show to introduce leading African-American characters into a soap opera in 1966. GL was the first daytime drama to podcast audio only shows in 2005. In 2008, the show revolutionized its entire production model, representing an end-to-end transformation in the way the show is created, from direction to editing to scenic design. This new innovation enabled the show to be completely portable, changing the face of daytime.


The fictional town of Springfield has been home to some of today's biggest names in daytime, including six-time Emmy award winner Justin Deas and four-time Emmy award winner Kim Zimmer. On Guiding Light, audiences also got their first look at many now-famous faces, such as Kevin Bacon, Calista Flockhart, Allison Janney, James Earl Jones, Cicely Tyson, Taye Diggs, and Hayden Panettiere, to name a few.

Comments

[confusedkayt.livejournal.com]

Le sigh. I hate the whole brooding "end of an epoch" tone everything seems to be taking these days. I am nostalgic for things I never lived through, so losing what seems like quintessential Americana is hard on me.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Sadly, at this point, I think it's only a matter of time until all of the soaps are dead. I give Days of Our Lives about 1 year before it follows (as that's when its contract expires. Probably the same for ATWT. And then it's only a matter of time before the ABC Titanic sinks (I'm willing to entertain conspiracy theories of executive sabotage because ineptitude only explains so much) leaving only the Bell shows.

[cindergal.livejournal.com]

Just when it was really starting to improve, too. I just started watching it once in awhile again when Grant Aleksander came back. GL was my show when I was a teen (I was in the Kevin Bacon era ;-)), so this makes me very sad.

I'm glad ATWT got picked up for another year, but it doesn't look good for them in the long run.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Like Nmissi, GL was one of the few soaps I never really watched. It does make me sad (though not terribly surprised) to see it go.

Sadly, I don't think any of the soaps have a very long future in front of them. In ten years, they're probably all be gone.

[sourisvho.livejournal.com]

That's sad. I watched GL from the time I was 7 until I was about 23.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

It's sad to see something with such a long history go.

[nmissi.livejournal.com]

GL is perhaps the only soap I've NEVER watched. But I'm sad to see it go. I think the end came with the cancellation of Another World; everything since has been downhill on a slow ride to hell. I would not be surprised to see everything gone ten years from now, or maybe everything but Young and the Restless. ABC soaps in particular are in a bad way. OLTL is the only one halfway worth watching now, but it can't capture a vanished market. Women just aren't at home watching their stories anymore. I think soap, if it is to survive, is going to have to migrate out to the web. I think we'll end up with serial content that's more "Imaginary Bitches" than "All My Children."

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I'm in a similar boat. At one point or another I've watched all of the NBC (all gone but Days... which might as well be gone) and all of ABC's (only OLTL is at all watchable) soaps. I've never watched Guiding Light. And, though I know it's been circling the bowl for years, seeing it go only makes me think that a few others won't be far behind (NBC has wanted to cancel Days for ages. And there were strong rumors that AMC was close to cancellation recently. And the fact that it is GH now with the worst ratings in their line-up, must be a shock to that hack Frons. AMC actually has the 'best' ratings, but it's absolutely unwatchable. (Though AMC is more expensive than OLTL, so I'm thinking that -- shockingly -- at the moment OLTL is probably their most probable. But, given the sucky ratings, that's not saying much.)

At any rate, I agree. I think GL is the deathknell. And I too trace the growing demise of soapdom with the cancellation of Another World (Though, truly, NBC's line-up destabilized when they axed Santa Barbara and never had an adequate replacement with Sunset Beach. Let's just admit, NBC allowed James Reilly to kill its daytime line-up.)

Anyway, though I've never been a GL watcher, I was saddened to read of its cancellation. Days, ATWT, and take your pick of an ABC soap probably isn't far behind.

ETA: And I just realized that when I said I'd watched all NBC soaps, I wasn't including Sunset Beach and Passions... because somehow I never considered either of them to be 'real soaps' as opposed to 'horrific jokes on the genre'. In my head the 'real' NBC line-up was Days/AW/Santa Barbara.

[pfeifferpack.livejournal.com]

That was my show. I watched for well over 30 years. I had to stop when they began to destroy beloved characters, forget the history and in all other ways ruin my family. Still I wish it wasn't going to be canceled. This is a piece of history here and deserves to continue if only for that reason. It started on radio and is the LONGEST drama period. What a shame, what a waste of fine talent and rich history.

Kathleen

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Part of the shame is, from what I've been reading, it's actually improved lately.

Still, it's a shock and not a shock at the same time. I've never been a GL watcher, but it's been known to be close to the chopping block for a while, and with Passions cancelled, it was going to slip into last place. Now, without it? Pretty soon that bottom slot will most likely belong to an ABC show... which will probably lead to the cancellation of one of those, etc.

When I read the headline, my first thought, is that somewhere there's a giant sucking sound because the plug has just been let out of the tub, and as soon as they can most networks will be killing off most -- if not all -- of their soaps in the next few years. There could be a day when there's only Y&R left.