Guiding Light (1950–59)
The Guiding Light (known since 1975 as Guiding Light) was a long-running American television soap opera.
On June 30, 1952, "The Guiding Light" began airing on CBS television. From June 30, 1952 to June 29, 1956, "The Guiding Light" ran on both CBS television and radio, with the actors performing, the same scenes but for different audiences, live twice each weekday. The live television performances were in the morning, and then in the afternoon the actors read for the live radio show. On July 2, 1956, "The Guiding Light" became a CBS television show, only, and the show no longer was heard on radio. Episodes continued at 15 minutes in length.
Guiding Light
The 1970s saw the popularity of "The Guiding Light" dip somewhat. The competition imposed upon "The Guiding Light" during this decade was from other serials such as "The Doctors" on NBC, but it still garnered decent ratings. After four years, CBS bumped its timeslot up by a half-hour to accommodate Procter & Gamble's demand that "The Edge of Night" move to 2:30/1:30, a move that led to the end of that show on CBS three years later. In the meantime, "The Guiding Light" stayed steadily on course against NBC's "Days of Our Lives" and ABC's "The Newlywed Game." In late 1974, ABC replaced "The Newlywed Game" with "The $10,000 Pyramid," which went on to garner strong ratings, but not greatly at "The Guiding Light's" expense. Meanwhile, by fall 1975 (at which point the show had officially dropped the word "The" from its title, although it was still referred to as "The Guiding Light" on air for several years after), the impending departure of "The Edge of Night" for ABC - to say nothing of CBS' planned expansion of some serials - affected "Guiding Light" by pushing it back to 2:30/1:30 once more in December. At that time, NBC still ran "The Doctors" in the 2:30 slot, and ABC had a short-lived hit the next year with an updated version of the game show "Break the Bank." To complicate the picture further, ABC opted to make its first show expansions, that of "One Life to Live" and "General Hospital," in July 1976; each of those shows occupied one-half of a 90-minute block until November 4, 1977.