Guiding Light
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. With it 72 years of radio and television runs, "Guiding Light" is the longest running soap opera before "General Hospital" 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" (1924-2010) have been on the air longer.
Guiding Light (1980–89)
Writer Marland quit in 1982 due to a dispute over treatment of his friend Jane Elliot, when the Carrie multiple personality disorder storyline didn't carry "Guiding Light"'s ratings to #1 above its rival, "General Hospital". Elliot was fired by Allen Potter, and Marland ended the storyline. Before Marland quit, "Guiding Light" won its second Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Daytime Drama, for the 1981 - 1982 television season, and despite Marland's departure, things looked very well for this long time CBS drama.