- The Wrap, Sunday, July 18, 2010 11:36 PM
As daytime soaps move toward extinction, it's not just restless housewives and the unemployed who suffer -- it's advertisers, which prefer soaps to the game and talk shows that are replacing them.
Though the alternatives are cheaper and easier for networks to produce, media buyers say soaps are still one of the most cost-effective buys on broadcast television.
"They are even
more efficient than much of daytime cable programming," one ad buyer said. "I would be disappointed if all of the soap operas disappeared." When CBS' "As the World Turns" airs its final episode this
September, the Big Three broadcast networks will be down to six daily daytime soaps. That's two less than two years ago, four less than in 2000 -- and 11 less than in the heyday of soaps during the
1969-70 season.
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