Guiding Light
"The Guiding Light" was broadcast first by CBS Television on June 30, 1952, replacing the canceled soap opera "The First Hundred Years". These episodes were also 15 minutes long. During the period from 1952 to 1956, "The Guiding Light" existed as both a radio and television serial, with actors recording their performances twice for each day that the shows were broadcast. The radio broadcast of "The Guiding Light" ceased production during 1956, ending this overlap.
Guiding Light (1970–79)
On November 5, 1975, the name was changed in the show's opening and closing visuals from "The Guiding Light" to "Guiding Light" in an attempt to modernize the show's image, and, at the same time, the show adopted the harp-and-string-laced "Ritournelle," by Charles Paul, as its theme song, accompanied by a somewhat abstracted visual of sunlight filtering through leaves on a tree. The serial was still called "The Guiding Light" by CBS (and the show's staff announcers, most notably Alan Berns who began his tenure with the program in 1969 and would last as show announcer until the spring of 1997) until fall 1981, when "The" was completely dropped from references and a more upbeat musical theme was adopted.