Let's Put The Soap Back Into Soap Opera

In case you didn't know, this is soap opera sweeps week - the one week out of the year when the soap operas pull out all of the stops.  It's the week that make or break Emmy nominations, and the week that keeps us viewers glued to our TVs.  Last year, "All My Children" had the gigantic explosion at Erica Kane's Mardi Gras ball, and this year, we have the identity of the Satin Slayer being revealed.  In thinking about the soap operas, I did some research and found that our beloved soap operas are the offspring of daytime radio broadcasts.  They were aimed at housewives and the radio shows were nothing more than incessant soap commercials.  Many of the products advertised were laundry and cleaning items.  Thus this type of radio drama was given the name "soap opera." 

At first glance, it would seem not much has changed with today's soap operas, but it has.  Back when the soap operas first aired, they were aimed at housewives.  According to the commercials shown during today's soap operas, they're aimed at deadbeats.  I did some research, and found that among the commercials shown for soap, food, and other items, there are also commercials shown advertising lawyers and car insurance for high-risk people. 

In extensive research, I discovered that in a one-hour episode of "All My Children", there was only 36 minutes of actual soap opera.  That left 24 minutes of commercials.  When broken down, that came to 6 commercial breaks, ranging from 6 to 10 commercials, with a total of 48 commercials during the so-called hour-long soap opera.  Out of those 48 commercials, 10 were either car insurance or ambulance-chasing lawyers.   It seems that our soap operas have changed to fit the demographics.