In a growing trend of serial soap opera cancellations on television, CBS soap opera As The World Turns has been cancelled and will air it’s last show next September. This follows the recent cancellation of another CBS soap – Guiding Light earlier in the year.
For many of us who love to watch our favorite soap characters dating, married, scheme, and all the other various ways their relationships unfold – it is a big disappointment.
While it probably is very expensive to write, shoot, and pay all the characters on a soap — I still say that it is a wonderful television art form that should survive, and not just die because of today’s tough economic climate.
Statistics show that the average daytime viewer is a lower-income, middle-aged, African-American female. The demographics that advertisers want to reach is a younger more affluent buyer. That use to be housewives years ago when the Soap Operas first began.
Today, many of the younger viewers that use to watch the soaps are using their DVRs to watch or catching up on cable channels such as SoapNet, which is making advertising dollars for daytime television slots decrease. I must admit I am guilty of this. I use my DVR and fast-forward through all the commercials:)
