Sunday, September 9, 2018

VIDEO SUNDAY - "GUIDING LIGHT", THE LONGEST RUNNING SOAP OPERA



For this Video Sunday during Soap Opera September, we're taking a look at 'The Guiding Light'....

From Wikipedia:
'Guiding Light' (known as 'The Guiding Light' before 1975) is an American television soap opera. It is listed in Guinness World Records as the longest-running drama in television in American history, broadcast on CBS for 57 years from June 30, 1952, until September 18, 2009, overlapping a 19-year broadcast on radio from 1937 to 1956. Its radio and television runs taken together, 'Guiding Light' is the longest running soap opera and the fifth-longest running program in all of broadcast history; only the American country music radio program 'Grand Ole Opry' (first broadcast in 1925), the BBC religious program 'The Daily Service' (1928), the CBS religious program 'Music and the Spoken Word' (1929), and the Norwegian children's radio program 'Lørdagsbarnetimen' (first aired in 1924, cancelled in 2010) have been on the air longer.

'Guiding Light' was created by Irna Phillips, and began as an NBC Radio serial on January 25, 1937. On June 2, 1947, the series was transferred to CBS Radio, before starting on June 30, 1952, on CBS Television. It continued to be broadcast concomitantly on radio until June 29, 1956. The series was expanded from 15 minutes to a half-hour during 1968 (and also switched from broadcasting live to pre-taping around this same time), and then to a full hour on November 7, 1977. The series broadcast its 15,000th CBS episode on September 6, 2006.

On April 1, 2009, CBS announced that it had canceled 'Guiding Light', after a run of 72 years, due to low ratings. The show taped its final Procter & Gamble scenes for CBS on August 11, 2009, and its final episode on the network aired on September 18, 2009. On October 5, 2009, CBS replaced 'Guiding Light' with an hour-long revival of Let's Make a Deal, hosted by Wayne Brady.

On August 22, 2013, Grant Aleksander, who had portrayed Phillip Spaulding on 'Guiding Light' from 1983 through the series finale in 2009, revealed in an interview with Carolyn Hinsey that former 'Guiding Light' executive producer Paul Rauch had been working on a continuation of 'Guiding Light' at the time of his death in December 2012.

In this collection of videos, we have some episodes from the second year on television, that 15,000th episode, and the show's finale in 2009.  Plus a celebration of the soap opera.

For more about the show and its storylines, click here.














Until next time.......

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