While daytime television is still thriving, there’s one genre that has been having more trouble in recent years. That type of series is none other than soap operas, early morning guilty pleasures with more twists and turns in them than most network TV shows. On the bright side, now that a lot of the competition is waning, CBS has decided to go ahead and renew its soap operas, along with the rest of its daytime programming for the 2016-2017 TV season.
That’s right, CBS fans, both The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful will be back for another round next fall. Plus, as a bonus, if you are a Bold fan, CBS has gone ahead and renewed that series for two seasons and not just one. So, there should be plenty of soap opera plotlines to keep you intrigued in the time to come. In addition to the two soap operas, CBS has also decided to renew some other daytime favorites, including The Talk, Let’s Make a Deal and last but not least The Price is Right. The decision was made by the network after the collective block of shows saw an increase of 2% in the ratings this year.
The Daytime TV landscape has changed a lot over the last few years. New talk shows from the likes of Katie Couric and Meredith Vieira have had trouble finding their niche. However, probably the most striking changes have occurred in the realm of soap operas. Guiding Light, All My Children, One Life To Live and As The World Turns were all cancelled by their respective networks. It seemed as if the soap opera fad might have been on the way out. Now, that doesn’t seem to be exactly the case.
What seems to have happened is that there was a bit of a dwindling soap opera audience, but not to the point where every series needed to be cancelled. Instead, once the competition thinned out, the shows that were left thrived. Other outlets have noted that content has improved thanks to the cancellation scare, as well.
While a lot of soaps have gone the way of the dinosaur, The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful are still king among the remaining series. Both CBS shows do well over 3 or even 4 million viewers each week. In comparison, recent episodes of General Hospital and Days of Our Lives have done closer to 2.5 million.
Not that anybody was worried about it, but I'd like everyone to go ahead and take a collective sigh of relief over the fact that The Price is Right will be coming back next year. What would we do without that series whilst bedridden with the chickenpox? Watch the same Netflix shows for the fourth time? Read a physical book? Good call on that renewal, CBS.
