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
"Guiding Light" was broadcast from three locations: Chicago (where creator Irna Phillips resided), from 1937 until 1946; Hollywood, from 1947 until 1949; and New York City starting during 1949. It was relocated from Chicago to Hollywood (despite objections of both Phillips and Arthur Peterson) to take advantage of the talent pool. Production was subsequently relocated to New York City, where the majority of soap operas were produced during the 1950s, 1960s and much of the 1970s; it remained based in New York City until the show's conclusion. Its final taping location was the CBS studios in midtown Manhattan. From the 1970s to the 1990s it was filmed at the Chelsea Studios. From soon before February 29, 2008, outdoor scenes were filmed on location in Peapack, New Jersey. The location filming coincided with another significant production change, as the series became the first American weekday soap opera to be recorded digitally. The production team chose to film with Canon XH-G1 HDV camcorders.
Unlike the old production model with pedestal-style cameras and traditional three-sided sets, handheld cameras allowed producers to choose as many locations as they wished.