CBS has announced that after 72 years and more than 15,700 episodes, Guiding Light, the longest-running soap opera on TV, will air its last show Read the full post.
Apr 1
2009
07:01 PM ET
'Guiding Light' to air last episode in September, ending 72-year run
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oh..if this turns out to be a cruel april fool’s day joke i will be really upset…I typically don’t like soaps, and although I haven’t liked the new look, GL is a decent soap opera, with regular middle class folks…if it’s really leaving than the only thing I can think of to do to “close the show” is to have either reva or alan die.
GUIDING LIGHT has been shining for me for 26 years! I was always the hopeless optimist that things would turn around for the show. Alas it did not. I will miss it immensely!
I can’t say I’m too shocked. I’m only 24. I probably started watching Guiding Light when I was 12 or so (whenever I was in middle school, lol). Over the last couple years it and the Bold and the Beautiful have gone drastically downhill. Although it recently picked up with the death of Coop and the return of Phillip it still isn’t like before. It will be weird to not see it anymore, but at lesat it’s not Y&R or ATWT. Those are my favorites!
These are bad times for soap operas. A story in USA Today a few weeks ago mentioned how viewership is drastically down and those who do still watch are in the 50+ age range which is hard to sell to advertisers. The daytime Emmys were not even aired this year, how bad is that? I fear for my fave, General Hospital. Maybe not for outright cancellation, but for big changes.
Like all the others I have been watching GL forever it seems. My mother also listened to it on the radio. It wasn’t always the best everyday but I stuck with it anyway. Josh and Reva are my favorites,always. Her story line now is great. Please end it with a good ending.
72 Years!?? That means the program was on air in 1937, 2 whole years before the first TV transmission. WOW.
Wow! I grew up watching Josh and Reva, Phillip and Beth, Mindy and Rick…my grandmother got us started watching this after school way back in the day. I don’t watch it much any more since I’m at work during the day but when I do catch it, it’s been very different from the old days. I hate the way it is filmed. Looks very weird. Don’t know a lot of these new people either. But it was a great soap to watch and had some great storylines. Why can’t they put it on the SOAP channel though instead? Thanks for the memories GL!
Never watched it. But it still seems kinda sad to me. The remaining soap operas are also dealing with falling viewerships. How long before the entire genre is gone? Stay tuned.
http://movies-tv-entertainment.blogspot.com/
Letting soaps die is about as sad as getting rid of polio.
a friend got me hooked on GL back in college, the days when Kevin Bacon played crazy alcoholic teenager Tim Werner. Talk about six degrees, how many gazillion actors worked on this show?
Haven’t watched it in 15 years or so, however, Just don’t have the time.
Good ridance. Now if only the rest of these stupid shows would follow suit.
to the guy mike that is the one out of touch with reality….soap opera’s are no different than any night time show with gold digger, cheater, murders…etc all tv shows have that! wake up!
72 years airing maybe, but not 72 years on T.V. That would put it at 1937. T.V. was not mass produced until after WWII, 1947 at the latest. The first T.V. broadcast was the 1939 olympics in Berlin to a handful of T.V.s didn’t anyone watch “Contact” with Jody Foster. Guiding Light is for the misguided dimwits anyway.
I have watched GL for only 15 years. I work full time and either tape or catch up on episodes via the website. I will totally miss this show.
I have watch GL for almost 35 years and I have got my husband watching it. I record it everyday incase i am not here to watch it. My mother was 200 hundreds miles away and we would call to discuss the show. This is the only show that i watch everyday. I wish you would reconsider and leave it on. I hope Frank gets married.