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Eastenders follows the lives of different families as they go about their daily lives in the fictional 'Albert Square'.

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As of May 2016, EastEnders has won nine BAFTA Awards and the Inside Soap Award for Best Soap for 14 years running (from 1997 to 2012), as well as twelve National Television Awards for Most Popular Serial Drama and 11 awards for Best Soap at the British Soap Awards.

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1930s TV mostly attracted a female audience to the advertisers of soap.

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A soap opera or soap for short is a radio or television serial dealing especially with domestic situations and frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored by soap manufacturers.

BBC Radio's The Archers, first broadcast in 1950, is the world's longest-running radio soap opera. The longest-running current television soap is Coronation Street, which was first broadcast on ITV in 1960, with the record for the longest running soap opera in history being held by Guiding Light, which began on radio in 1937, transitioned to television in 1952, and ended in 2009.

A crucial element that defines the soap opera is the open-ended serial nature of the narrative, with stories spanning several episodes. One of the defining features that makes a television program a soap opera, according to Albert Moran, is "that form of television that works with a continuous open narrative. Each episode ends with a promise that the storyline is to be continued in another episode". In 2012, Los Angeles Times columnist Robert Lloyd wrote of daily dramas:

Although melodramatically eventful, soap operas such as this also have a luxury of space that makes them seem more naturalistic; indeed, the economics of the form demand long scenes, and conversations that a 22-episodes-per-season weekly series might dispense with in half a dozen lines of dialogue may be drawn out, as here, for pages. You spend more time even with the minor characters; the apparent villains grow less apparently villainous.

Soap opera storylines run concurrently, intersect and lead into further developments. An individual episode of a soap opera will generally switch between several concurrent narrative threads that may at times interconnect and affect one another or may run entirely independent to each other. Episodes may feature some of the show's current storylines, but not always all of them. Especially in daytime serials and those that are broadcast each weekday, there is some rotation of both storyline and actors so any given storyline or actor will appear in some but usually not all of a week's worth of episodes. Soap operas rarely bring all the current storylines to a conclusion at the same time. When one storyline ends, there are several other story threads at differing stages of development. Soap opera episodes typically end on some sort of cliffhanger, and the season finale (if a soap incorporates a break between seasons) ends in the same way, only to be resolved when the show returns for the start of a new yearly broadcast.

Evening soap operas and those that air at a rate of one episode per week are more likely to feature the entire cast in each episode, and to represent all current storylines in each episode. Evening soap operas and serials that run for only part of the year tend to bring things to a dramatic end-of-season cliffhanger.

In 1976, magazine described American daytime television as "TV's richest market", noting the loyalty of the soap opera fan base and the expansion of several half-hour series into hour-long broadcasts in order to maximize ad revenues. The article explained that at that time, many prime time series lost money, while daytime serials earned profits several times more than their production costs. The issue's cover notably featured its first daytime soap stars, Bill Hayes and Susan Seaforth Hayes of Days of Our Lives, a married couple whose onscreen and real-life romance was widely covered by both the soap opera magazines and the mainstream press at large.

The first program generally considered to be a "soap opera" or daytime serial by scholars of the genre is Painted Dreams, which premiered on WGN radio Chicago, on October 20, 1930. It was regularly broadcast in a daytime time slot, where most listeners would be housewives; thus, the shows were aimed at - and consumed by - a predominantly female audience. Clara, Lu, 'n Em would become the first network radio serial of the type when it aired on the NBC Blue Network at 10:30 p.m. Eastern Time on January 27, 1931. Although it did not make the move until February 15, 1932, Clara, Lu 'n Em would become the first network serial of the type to move to a weekday daily timeslot, and so also became the first network daytime serial.

The main characteristics that define soap operas are "an emphasis on family life, personal relationships, sexual dramas, emotional and moral conflicts; some coverage of topical issues; set in familiar domestic interiors with only occasional excursions into new locations". Fitting in with these characteristics, most soap operas follow the lives of a group of characters who live or work in a particular place, or focus on a large extended family. The storylines follow the day-to-day activities and personal relationships of these characters. "Soap narratives, like those of film melodramas, are marked by what Steve Neale has described as 'chance happenings, coincidences, missed meetings, sudden conversions, last-minute rescues and revelations, deus ex machina endings.'" These elements may be found across the gamut of soap operas, from EastEnders to .

In many soap operas, in particular daytime serials in the US, the characters are frequently attractive, seductive, glamorous and wealthy. Soap operas from the United Kingdom and Australia tend to focus on more everyday characters and situations, and are frequently set in working-class environments. Many of the soaps produced in those two countries explore social realist storylines such as family discord, marriage breakdown or financial problems. Both UK and Australian soap operas feature comedic elements, often affectionate comic stereotypes such as the gossip or the grumpy old man, presented as a comic foil to the emotional turmoil that surrounds them. This diverges from US soap operas where such comedy is rare. UK soap operas frequently make a claim to presenting "reality" or purport to have a "realistic" style. UK soap operas also frequently foreground their geographic location as a key defining feature of the show while depicting and capitalising on the exotic appeal of the stereotypes connected to the location. As examples, EastEnders focuses on the tough and grim life in the East End of London; Coronation Street and its characters exhibit the stereotypical characteristic of "northern straight talking".

"If we want to blend an actor back into a show, there's always a way. You can generally find a way to twist and manipulate something. You rarely see a dead body, but hey, even if you do, he or she can always come back to play the evil identical twin."

- Marlena Laird in 1992, during her time as a line producer and director for General Hospital.

Romance, secret relationships, extramarital affairs, and genuine hate have been the basis for many soap opera storylines. In US daytime serials, the most popular soap opera characters, and the most popular storylines, often involved a romance of the sort presented in paperback romance novels. Soap opera storylines weave intricate, convoluted and sometimes confusing tales of characters who have affairs, meet mysterious strangers and fall in love, and who commit adultery, all of which keeps audiences hooked on the unfolding story. Crimes such as kidnapping, rape, and even murder may go unpunished if the perpetrator is to be retained in the ongoing story.

Australian and UK soap operas also feature a significant proportion of romance storylines. In Russia, most popular serials explore the "romantic quality" of criminal and/or oligarch life.

In soap opera storylines, previously unknown children, siblings and twins (including the evil variety) of established characters often emerge to upset and reinvigorate the set of relationships examined by the series. Unexpected calamities disrupt weddings, childbirths, and other major life events with unusual frequency.

As in comic books - another popular form of linear storytelling pioneered in the US during the 20th century - a character's death is not guaranteed to be permanent. On The Bold and the Beautiful, Taylor Hayes ( Hunter Tylo) was shown to flatline and have a funeral. Once Tylo reprised her character in 2005, a retcon explained that Taylor had actually gone into a coma.

Stunts and complex physical action are largely absent, especially from daytime serials. Such story events often take place off-screen and are referred to in dialogue instead of being shown. This is because stunts or action scenes are difficult to adequately depict without complex movements, multiple takes, and post-production editing. When episodes were broadcast live, post-production work was impossible. Though all serials have long switched to being taped, extensive post-production work and multiple takes, while possible, are not feasible due to the tight taping schedules and low budgets.

The first daytime TV soap opera in the United States was These Are My Children in 1949, though earlier melodramas had aired in the evenings as once-a-week programs. Soap operas quickly became a fixture of American daytime television in the early 1950s, joined by game shows, sitcom reruns and talk shows.

In 1988, H. Wesley Kenney, who at the time served as the executive producer of General Hospital, said to The New York Times:

I think people like stories that continue so they can relate to these people. They become like a family, and the viewer becomes emotionally involved. There seem to be two attitudes by viewers. One, that the stories are similar to what happened to them in real life, or two, thank goodness that isn't me.

Many long-running US soap operas established particular environments for their stories. The Doctors and General Hospital, in the beginning, told stories almost exclusively from inside the confines of a hospital. As the World Turns dealt heavily with Chris Hughes' law practice and the travails of his wife Nancy who, tired of being "the loyal housewife" in the 1970s, became one of the first older women on the American serials to enter the workforce. Guiding Light dealt with Bert Bauer ( Charita Bauer) and her alcoholic husband Bill, and their endless marital troubles. When Bert's status shifted to caring mother and town matriarch, her children's marital troubles were showcased. Search for Tomorrow mostly told its story through the eyes of Joanne Gardner ( Mary Stuart). Even when stories revolved around other characters, Joanne was frequently a key player in their storylines. Days of Our Lives initially focused on Dr. Tom Horton and his steadfast wife Alice. The show later branched out to focus more on their five children. The Edge of Night featured as its central character Mike Karr, a police detective (later an attorney), and largely dealt with organized crime. The Young and the Restless first focused on two families, the prosperous Brooks family with four daughters, and the working class Foster family of a single working mother with three children. Its storylines explored realistic problems including cancer, mental illness, poverty, and infidelity.

In contrast, Dark Shadows (1966-1971), Port Charles (1997-2003) and (1999-2008) featured supernatural characters and dealt with fantasy and horror storylines. Their characters included vampires, witches, ghosts, goblins, and angels.

The American soap opera Guiding Light (originally titled The Guiding Light until 1975) started as a radio drama in January 1937 and subsequently transferred to television in June 1952. With the exception of several years in the late 1940s, during which creator Irna Phillips was involved in a dispute with Procter & Gamble, Guiding Light was heard or seen nearly every weekday from 1937 to 2009, making it the longest story ever told in a broadcast medium.

Originally serials were broadcast as 15-minute installments each weekday in daytime slots. In 1956, As the World Turns and The Edge of Night, both produced by Procter & Gamble Productions, debuted as the first half-hour soap operas on the CBS television network. All soap operas broadcast half-hour episodes by the end of the 1960s. With increased popularity in the 1970s, most soap operas had expanded to an hour in length by the end of the decade (Another World even expanded to 90 minutes for a short time from 1978 to 1980). More than half of the serials had expanded to one-hour episodes by 1980. As of 2012, three of the four U.S. serials air one-hour episodes each weekday; only The Bold and the Beautiful airs 30-minute episodes.

Soap operas were originally broadcast live from the studio, creating what many at the time regarded as a feeling similar to that of a stage play. As nearly all soap operas were originated at that time from New York City, a number of soap actors were also accomplished stage actors who performed live theater during breaks from their soap roles. In the 1960s and 1970s, new serials such as General Hospital, Days of our Lives and The Young and the Restless were produced in Los Angeles. Their success made the West Coast a viable alternative to New York-produced soap operas, which were becoming more costly to perform. By the early 1970s, nearly all soap operas had transitioned to being taped. As the World Turns and The Edge of Night were the last to make the switch, in 1975.

Port Charles used the practice of running 13-week " story arcs," in which the main events of the arc are played out and wrapped up over the 13 weeks, although some storylines did continue over more than one arc. According to the 2006 Preview issue of Soap Opera Digest, it was briefly discussed that all ABC shows might do telenovela arcs, but this was rejected.

Though U.S. daytime soap operas are not generally rerun by their networks, occasionally they are rebroadcast elsewhere; CBS and ABC have made exceptions to this, airing older episodes (either those aired earlier in the current season or those aired years prior) on major holidays when special event programming is not scheduled or because of last-minute deferrals of scheduled episodes to the following day because of breaking news coverage. ( Temporary production stoppages caused by the COVID-19 pandemic similarly resulted in CBS and ABC airing older reruns of The Young and the Restless, The Bold and the Beautiful and General Hospital during the Spring and Summer of 2020 in order to ration first-run episodes and, eventually, to fill airtime after the programs ran out of new episodes to broadcast; Days of Our Lives, which produces its episodes roughly eight months ahead of their initial broadcast, did not resort to airing older episodes during this time as it had a larger first-run episode backlog.) Early episodes of Dark Shadows were rerun on PBS member stations in the early 1970s after the show's cancellation, and the entire series (except for a single missing episode) was rerun on the Sci-Fi Channel in the 1990s. After The Edge of Night's 1984 cancellation, reruns of the show's final five years were shown late nights on USA Network from 1985 to 1989. On January 20, 2000, a digital cable and satellite network dedicated to the genre, Soapnet, began re-airing soaps that originally aired on ABC, NBC and CBS.

Newer broadcast networks since the late 1980s, such as Fox and cable television networks, have largely eschewed soap operas in their daytime schedules, instead running syndicated programming and reruns. No cable television outlet has produced its own daytime serial, although DirecTV's The 101 Network took over existing serial , continuing production for one season; while TBS and CBN Cable Network respectively aired their own soap operas, The Catlins (a primetime soap that utilized the daily episode format of its daytime counterparts) and Another Life (a soap that combined standard serial drama with religious overtones), during the 1980s. Fox, the fourth "major network," carried a short lived daytime soap in 1990. Yet other than this and a couple of pilot attempts, Fox mainly stayed away from daytime soaps, and has not attempted them since their ascension to major-network status in 1994 (it did later attempt a series of daily prime time soaps, which aired on newly created sister network MyNetworkTV, but the experiment was largely a failure).

Due to the masses of episodes produced for a series, release of soap operas to DVD (a popular venue for distribution of current and vintage television series) is considered impractical. With the exception of occasional specials, daytime soap operas are notable by their absence from DVD release schedules (an exception being the supernatural soap opera, Dark Shadows, which did receive an essentially complete release on both VHS and DVD; the single lost episode #1219 is reconstructed by means of an off-the-air audio recording, still images, and recap material from adjacent episodes).

Due to the longevity of these shows, it is not uncommon for a single character to be played by multiple actors. The key character of Mike Karr on The Edge of Night was played by three actors.

Conversely, several actors have remained playing the same character for many years, or decades even. Helen Wagner played Hughes family matriarch Nancy Hughes on American soap As the World Turns from its April 2, 1956, debut through her death in May 2010. She is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the actor with the longest uninterrupted performance in a single role. A number of performers played roles for 20 years or longer, occasionally on more than one show. Rachel Ames played Audrey Hardy on both General Hospital and Port Charles from 1964 until 2007, and returned in 2009. Susan Lucci played Erica Kane in All My Children from the show's debut in January 1970 until it ended its network television run on ABC on September 23, 2011. Erika Slezak played Victoria Lord #3 on One Life to Live from 1971 until the show ended its network television run on ABC on January 13, 2012, and resumed the role in its short-lived online revival on April 29, 2013.

Other actors have played several characters on different shows. Millette Alexander, Bernard Barrow, Doris Belack, David Canary, Judith Chapman, Jordan Charney, Joan Copeland, Nicolas Coster, Jacqueline Courtney, Louis Edmonds, Don Hastings, Vincent Irizarry, Lenore Kasdorf, Teri Keane, Lois Kibbee, John Loprieno, Maeve McGuire, James Mitchell, Christopher Pennock, Antony Ponzini, William Prince, Louise Shaffer, and Diana van der Vlis, among many others, have all played multiple soap roles.

For several decades, most daytime soap operas concentrated on family and marital discord, legal drama and romance. The action rarely left interior settings, and many shows were set in fictional, medium-sized Midwestern towns.

Exterior shots were slowly incorporated into the series The Edge of Night and Dark Shadows. Unlike many earlier serials that were set in fictional towns, The Best of Everything and were set in a real-world location, New York City.

The first exotic location shoot was made by All My Children, to St. Croix in 1978. Many other soap operas planned lavish storylines after the success of the All My Children shoot. Soap operas Another World and Guiding Light both went to St. Croix in 1980, the former show culminating a long-running storyline between popular characters Mac, Rachel and Janice, and the latter to serve as an exotic setting for Alan Spaulding and Rita Bauer's torrid affair. Search for Tomorrow taped for two weeks in Hong Kong in 1981. Later that year, some of the cast and crew ventured to Jamaica to tape a love consummation storyline between the characters of Garth and Kathy.

During the 1980s, perhaps as a reaction to the evening drama series that were gaining high ratings, daytime serials began to incorporate action and adventure storylines, more big-business intrigue, and an increased emphasis on youthful romance.

One of the first and most popular couples was Luke Spencer and Laura Webber on General Hospital. Luke and Laura helped to attract both male and female fans. Even actress Elizabeth Taylor was a fan and at her own request was given a guest role in Luke and Laura's wedding episode. Luke and Laura's popularity led to other soap producers striving to reproduce this success by attempting to create supercouples of their own.

With increasingly bizarre action storylines coming into vogue, Luke and Laura saved the world from being frozen, brought a mobster down by finding his black book in a left-handed boy statue, and helped a princess find her Aztec treasure in Mexico. Other soap operas attempted similar adventure storylines, often featuring footage shot on location - frequently in exotic locales.

During the 1990s, the mob, action and adventure stories fell out of favor with producers, due to generally declining ratings for daytime soap operas at the time, and the resultant budget cuts. In addition, soap operas were no longer able to go on expensive location shoots overseas as they were able to do in the 1980s. During that decade, soap operas increasingly focused on younger characters and social issues, such as Erica Kane's drug addiction on All My Children, the re-emergence of Viki Lord's dissociative identity disorder on One Life to Live, and Stuart Chandler dealing with his wife Cindy dying of AIDS on All My Children. Other social issues included cancer, rape, abortion, homophobia, and racism.

Some shows during the 2000s incorporated supernatural and science fiction elements into their storylines. One of the main characters on the earlier soap opera Dark Shadows was Barnabas Collins, a vampire, and One Life to Live featured an angel named Virgil. Both shows featured characters who traveled to and from the past.

Modern U.S. daytime soap operas largely stay true to the original soap opera format. The duration and format of storylines and the visual grammar employed by U.S. daytime serials set them apart from soap operas in other countries and from evening soap operas. Stylistically, UK and Australian soap operas, which are usually produced for early evening timeslots, fall somewhere in between U.S. daytime and evening soap operas. Similar to U.S. daytime soap operas, UK and Australian serials are shot on videotape, and the cast and storylines are rotated across the week's episodes so that each cast member will appear in some but not all episodes. UK and Australian soap operas move through storylines at a faster rate than daytime serials, making them closer to U.S. evening soap operas in this regard.

American daytime soap operas feature stylistic elements that set them apart from other shows:

A construct unique to U.S. daytime serials is the format where the action will cut between various conversations, returning to each at the precise moment it was left. This is the most significant distinction between U.S. daytime soap operas and other forms of U.S. television drama, which generally allow for narrative time to pass, off-screen, between the scenes depicted. On occasion, a character or characters involved a conversation earlier in that act may appear in a different setting later in the same act.

In U.S. daytime soap operas, scenes often end with a pregnant pause and a close-up on the character. There will be no dialogue for several seconds, while the music builds before cutting to a commercial or a new scene. This kind of segue is referred to in the industry as a "tag".

The traditional three-point lighting set-up routinely used in filmmaking and television production is also used on daytime soap operas, sometimes with accentuated back lighting to lift actors out of the background. This is useful in programs like soap operas, which are shot on videotape in small interior sets. The backlight is frequently more subtle on filmed productions shot on location and in larger sets.

Domestic interiors are often furnished with stained wood wall panels and furniture, and items of brown leather furniture. This is to give a sumptuous and luxurious look suggesting the wealth of the characters. Daytime serials often foreground other sumptuous elements of set decoration; presenting a "mid-shot of characters viewed through a frame of lavish floral displays, glittering crystal decanters or gleaming antique furniture".

Few U.S. daytime soap operas routinely feature location or exterior-shot footage (Guiding Light began shooting many of its scenes outdoors in its final two seasons). Often an outdoor locale is recreated in the studio. Australian and U.K. daily soap operas invariably feature a certain amount of exterior shot footage in every episode. This is usually shot in the same location and often on a purpose-built set, with new exterior locations for particular events.

The visual quality of a soap opera is usually lower than prime time U.S. television drama series due to the lower budgets and quicker production times. This is also because soap operas are recorded on videotape using a multi-camera setup, unlike prime time productions that are usually shot on film and frequently use the single camera shooting style. Because of the lower resolution of video images, and also because of the emotional situations portrayed in soap operas, daytime serials make heavy use of close-up shots. Programs in the United States did not make the full conversion to high definition broadcasting until September 2011, when The Bold and the Beautiful became the last soap to convert to the format; One Life to Live was an exception to this, as it continued to be produced and broadcast in standard definition - albeit in the 16:9 aspect ratio - until the end of its run on ABC in January 2012.

Soap operas have idiosyncratic blocking techniques. In one common situation, a romantically involved couple starts a conversation face-to-face, then one character will turn 180° and face away from the other character while the conversation continues. This allows both characters to appear together in a single shot, and with both of them facing the audience. This is unrealistic in real life and is not frequently seen in film or on television outside U.S. daytime serials, but it is an accepted soap opera convention, sometimes referred to as a "two shot West".

Because of the escapist tone of the genre and due to the large number of cast members employed by each program (usually totaling around 30 to 35 actors for hour-long soaps, and 15 to 25 for those lasting a half-hour), daytime soap operas have traditionally listed all contract cast members (as well as recurring and guest actors) during the closing credits, instead of the opening title sequence. Until the 1990s, these series listed only a few of the principal actors at the end of the episode in certain episodes airing on Monday through Thursdays. Because of the aforementioned reasons, an extended credit sequence featuring a complete list of the show's cast members - listed alongside the characters they portray - typically airs at least once per week (usually on the Friday show; although since the 2000s, most soap operas - with General Hospital as one of the few exceptions - have randomized the day the cast list is shown). The Young and the Restless became the first American daytime soap to include the names of its contract actors in the opening credits in 1999 (although due to the large number of actors on contract with the show at one time, it utilizes different versions of the title sequence with a randomized list of about nine actors, increased from the seven listed in each version until 2017); The Bold and the Beautiful listed its entire main cast (as well as some actors appearing on a recurring basis) from 2004 to 2017, with General Hospital following suit from 2010 to 2013. (As of 2021, The Young and the Restless is the only American daytime soap opera that lists the names of its main cast during both its opening titles and extended closing credit sequence.)

Statistics and trends

Soap opera ratings have significantly fallen in the U.S. since the 2000s. No new major daytime soap opera has been created since in 1999, while many have been cancelled. Since January 2012, four daytime soap operas - General Hospital, Days of Our Lives, The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful - continue to air on the three major networks, down from a total of 12 during the 1990-91 season and a high of 19 in the 1969-70 season. This marks the first time since 1953 that there have been only four soap operas airing on broadcast television. The Young and the Restless, the highest-rated soap opera from 1988 to the present, had fewer than 5 million daily viewers as of February 2012, a number exceeded by several non-scripted programs such as . Circulations of soap opera magazines have decreased and some have even ceased publication. Soapnet, which largely aired soap opera reruns, began to be phased out in 2012 and fully ceased operations the following year. The Daytime Emmy Awards, which honor soap operas and other daytime shows, moved from prime time network television to smaller cable channels in 2012, then failed to get any TV broadcast at all in 2014, 2016, and 2017.

Several of the U.S.'s most established soaps ended between 2009 and 2012. The longest-running drama in television and radio history, Guiding Light, barely reached 2.1 million daily viewers in 2009 and ended on September 18 of that year, after a 72-year run (including radio). As the World Turns aired its final episode on September 17, 2010, after a 54-year run. As the World Turns was the last of 20 soap operas produced by Procter & Gamble, the soap and consumer goods company from which the genre got its name. As the World Turns and Guiding Light were also among the last of the soaps that originated from New York City. All My Children, another New York-based soap, moved its production out to Los Angeles in an effort to reduce costs and raise sagging ratings; however, both it and One Life to Live, each with a 40-year-plus run, were cancelled in 2011. All My Children aired its network finale in September 2011, with One Life to Live following suit in January 2012. Both All My Children and One Life to Live were briefly revived online in 2013, before being cancelled again that same year. In 2019, production of Days of Our Lives was put on "indefinite hiatus" and all of the cast's contracts were terminated, raising concerns within soap publications that cancellation would ensue, though the show was later renewed through September 2021.

As women increasingly worked outside of the home, daytime television viewing declined. New generations of potential viewers were not raised watching soap operas with their mothers, leaving the shows' long and complex storylines foreign to younger audiences. Now, as viewers age, ratings continue to drop among young adult women, the demographic group that soap opera advertisers pay the most for. Those who might watch in workplace breakrooms are not counted, as Nielsen does not track television viewing outside the home. The rise of cable and the Internet has also provided new sources of entertainment during the day. The genre's decline has additionally been attributed to reality television displacing soap operas as TV's dominant form of melodrama. An early term for the reality TV genre was docu-soap. A precursor to reality TV, the televised 1994-95 O. J. Simpson murder case, both preempted and competed with an entire season of soaps, transforming viewing habits and leaving soap operas with 10 percent fewer viewers after the trial ended.

Daytime programming alternatives such as talk shows, game shows, and court shows cost up to 50% less to produce than scripted dramas, making those formats more profitable and attractive to networks, even if they receive the same or slightly lower ratings than soap operas. A network may even prefer to return a time slot to its local stations to keeping a soap opera with disappointing ratings on the air, as was the case with Sunset Beach and Port Charles. Compounding the financial pressure on scripted programming in the 2007-2010 period was a decline in advertising during the Great Recession, which led shows to reduce their budgets and cast sizes. In addition to these external factors, a litany of production decisions has been cited by soap opera fans as contributing to the genre's decline, such as clichéd plots, a lack of diversity that narrowed audience appeal, and the elimination of core families.

Serials produced for prime time slots have also found success. The first prime time soap opera was Faraway Hill (1946), which aired on October 2, 1946, on the now-defunct DuMont Television Network. Faraway Hill ran for 12 episodes and was primarily broadcast live, interspersed with short pre-recorded film clips and still photos to remind the audience of the previous week's episode.

The first long-running prime time soap opera was Peyton Place (1964-1969) on ABC. It was based in part on the eponymous 1957 film (which, in turn, was based on the 1956 novel).

The popularity of Peyton Place prompted the CBS network to spin-off popular As the World Turns character Lisa Miller into her own evening soap opera, Our Private World (originally titled "The Woman Lisa" in its planning stages). Our Private World was broadcast from May to September 1965. The character of Lisa (and her portrayer Eileen Fulton) returned to As The World Turns after the series ended.

The structure of Peyton Place, with its episodic plots and long-running story arcs, set the mold for the prime time serials of the 1980s, when the format reached its pinnacle.

The successful prime time serials of the 1980s included , its spin-off Knots Landing, , and Falcon Crest. These shows frequently dealt with wealthy families, and their personal and big-business travails. Common characteristics were sumptuous sets and costumes, complex storylines examining business schemes and intrigue, and spectacular disaster cliffhanger situations. Each of these series featured a wealthy, domineering, promiscuous, and passionate antagonist as a key character in the storyline - respectively, J.R. Ewing ( Larry Hagman), Abby Cunningham ( Donna Mills), Alexis Colby ( Joan Collins), and Angela Channing ( Jane Wyman). These villainous schemers became immensely popular figures that audiences "loved to hate".

Unlike daytime serials, which are shot on video in a studio using the multi-camera setup, these evening series were shot on film using a single camera setup, and featured substantial location-shot footage, often in picturesque locales. Dallas, its spin-off Knots Landing, and Falcon Crest all initially featured episodes with self-contained stories and specific guest stars who appeared in just that episode. Each story was completely resolved by the end of the episode, and there were no end-of-episode cliffhangers. After the first couple of seasons, all three shows changed their story format to that of a pure soap opera, with interwoven ongoing narratives that ran over several episodes. Dynasty featured this format throughout its run.

The soap opera's distinctive open plot structure and complex continuity was increasingly incorporated into American prime time television programs of the period. The first significant drama series to do this was Hill Street Blues. This series, produced by Steven Bochco, featured many elements borrowed from soap operas, such as an ensemble cast, multi-episode storylines, and extensive character development over the course of the series. It and the later Cagney & Lacey overlaid the police series formula with ongoing narratives exploring the personal lives and interpersonal relationships of the regular characters. The success of these series prompted other drama series, such as St. Elsewhere and situation comedy series, to incorporate serialized stories and story structure to varying degrees.

The prime time soap operas and drama series of the 1990s, such as Beverly Hills, 90210, Melrose Place, Party of Five, , and Dawson's Creek, focused more on younger characters. In the 2000s, ABC began to revitalize the prime time soap opera format with shows such as Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy, Brothers & Sisters, , Private Practice, and more recently , , , Mistresses, and formerly , which its sister production company ABC Studios co-produced with CBS Television Studios for The CW. While not soaps in the traditional sense, these shows managed to appeal to wide audiences with their high drama mixed with humor, and are soap operas by definition. These successes led to NBC's launching serials, including and Friday Night Lights.[citation needed ] The upstart MyNetworkTV, a sister network of Fox, launched a line of prime time telenovelas (a genre similar to soap operas in terms of content) upon its launch in September 2006, but discontinued its use of the format in 2007 after disappointing ratings.[citation needed ]

On June 13, 2012, , a continuation of the 1978 original series premiered on the cable network, TNT. The revived series, which was canceled after three seasons in 2014, delivered solid ratings for the channel, only losing viewership after the show's most established star, Larry Hagman, died midway through the series. In 2012, Nick at Nite debuted a primetime soap opera, Hollywood Heights, which aired episodes five nights a week (on Monday through Fridays) in a manner similar to a daytime soap opera, instead of the once-a-week episode output common of other prime time soaps. The series, which was an adaptation of the Mexican telenovela Alcanzar una estrella, suffered from low ratings (generally receiving less than 1 million viewers) and was later moved to sister cable channel TeenNick halfway through its run to burn off the remaining episodes.

In 2015, Fox debuted , a prime time musical serial centering on the power struggle between family members within the titular recording company. Created by Lee Daniels and Danny Strong and led by Oscar nominees Terrence Howard and Taraji P. Henson, the drama premiered to high ratings. The show is strongly influenced by other works such as William Shakespeare's , James Goldman's The Lion in Winter and the 1980s soap opera . Also in 2015, E! introduced , a series following the life and drama of a fictional English Royal family, which was also inspired by Dynasty (even featuring Joan Collins as the Queen's mother). In addition, ABC debuted a prime time soap opera , following a young couple looking to make money off the modern-day Williston oil boom, premiering on September 27, 2015.

The telenovela, a shorter-form format of serial melodrama, shares some thematic and especially stylistic similarity to the soap opera, enough that the colloquialism Spanish soap opera has arisen to describe the format. The chief difference between the two is length of series; while soap operas usually have indefinite runs, telenovelas typically have a central story arc with a prescribed ending within a year or two of the show's launch, requiring more concise storytelling.

Spanish-language networks, chiefly Univision and Telemundo, have found success airing telenovelas for the growing U.S. Hispanic market. Both originally produced and imported Latin American dramas (as well as imported Turkish dramas since the 2020s) are popular features of the networks' daytime and primetime lineups, sometimes beating English-language networks in the ratings.

Some web series are soap operas, such as Degrassi: In Session or Venice: The Series. In 2013, production company Prospect Park revived All My Children and One Life to Live for the web, retaining original creator Agnes Nixon as a consultant and keeping many of the same actors (Prospect Park purchased the rights to both series months after their cancellations by ABC in 2011, although it initially suspended plans to relaunch the soaps later that same year due to issues receiving approval from acting and production unions). Each show initially produced four half-hour episodes a week, but quickly cut back to two half-hour episodes each. In the midst of (though not directly related to) a lawsuit between Prospect Park and ABC, the experiment ended that same year, with both shows being canceled again.

As of 2017, Turkey is the second largest exporter of television soap operas. In 2016, Turkish TV exports earned $350 million, making it the second largest drama exporter in the world behind the United States. Turkish soap operas have a large following across Asia, the Balkans, Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa.

Soap operas in the UK began on radio and consequently were associated with the BBC. It had resisted soaps as antithetical to its quality image, but began broadcasting Front Line Family in April 1941 on its North American shortwave service to encourage American intervention on Britain's behalf in World War II. The BBC continues to broadcast the world's longest-running radio soap, The Archers, which first aired in May 1950, and has been running nationally since 1951. It is currently broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and continues to attract over five million listeners, or roughly 25% of the radio listening population of the UK at that time of the evening.

In the UK, soap operas are one of the most popular genres, with most being broadcast during prime time. Most UK soap operas focus on everyday, working-class communities, influenced by the conventions of the kitchen sink drama. The most popular soap operas in the United Kingdom are Coronation Street, EastEnders, , , , and the Australian produced Neighbours and Home and Away. The first three of these are consistently among the highest-rated shows on British television. Such is the magnitude of the popularity of the soap genre in the UK that all television serials in the country are reputedly enjoyed by members of the British Royal Family, including Queen Elizabeth II herself. Major events in British culture are often mentioned in the storyline, such as England's participation at the World Cup, and the death of Princess Diana. Since 1999, The British Soap Awards has been televised on ITV.

The 1986 Christmas Day episode of EastEnders is often referred to as the highest-rated UK soap opera episode ever, with 30.15 million viewers (more than half the population at the time). The figure of 30.15 million was actually a combination of the original broadcast, which had just over 19 million viewers, and the Sunday omnibus edition with 10 million viewers. The combined 30.15 million audience figure makes the aforementioned Christmas Day 1986 episode of EastEnders the highest-rated single-channel broadcast in the history of UK television. Overall it ranks third behind the 1966 FIFA World Cup Final (32.3 million viewers) and Princess Diana's funeral in 1997 (32.1 million viewers) which were transmitted on both BBC One and ITV.

An early television serial was The Grove Family on the BBC, which produced 148 episodes from 1954 to 1957. The programme was broadcast live and only a handful of recordings were retained in the archives. The UK's first twice-weekly serial was ITV's Emergency - Ward 10, running from 1957 until 1967.

In the 1960s, Coronation Street revolutionised UK television and quickly became a British institution. On 17 September 2010, it became the world's longest-running television soap opera and was listed in Guinness World Records. The BBC also produced several serials: was about the staff of a women's magazine; The Newcomers was about the upheaval caused by a large firm setting up a plant in a small town; contained 147 episodes and focused on a football team; 199 Park Lane (1965) was an upper class serial, which ran for only 18 episodes. None of these serials came close to making the same impact as Coronation Street. Indeed, most of the 1960s BBC serials were largely wiped.

During the 1960s, Coronation Street's main rival was Crossroads, a daily serial that began in 1964 and aired on ITV in the early evening. Crossroads was set in a Birmingham motel and, although the program was popular, its purported low technical standard and bad acting were much mocked. By the 1980s, its ratings had begun to decline. Several attempts to revamp the program through cast changes and, later, expanding the focus from the motel to the surrounding community were unsuccessful. Crossroads was cancelled in 1988 (a new version of Crossroads was later produced, running from 2001 until 2003).

A later rival to Coronation Street was ITV's Emmerdale Farm (later renamed Emmerdale), which began in 1972 in a daytime slot and was set in rural Yorkshire. Increased viewership resulted in Emmerdale being moved to a prime-time slot in the 1980s.

( People of the Valley) is a Welsh language serial that has been produced by the BBC since October 1974, and is the longest-running television soap opera produced by the broadcaster. Pobol y Cwm was originally broadcast on BBC Wales television from 1974 to 1982; it was then moved to the Welsh-language television station S4C when it opened in November 1982. The program was occasionally shown on BBC1 in London during periods of regional optout in the mid- to late 1970s. Pobol y Cwm was briefly shown in the rest of the UK in 1994 on BBC2, with English subtitles; it is consistently the most watched programme each week on S4C.

Daytime soap operas were non-existent until the 1970s because there was virtually no daytime television in the UK. ITV introduced General Hospital, which later moved to a prime time slot. In 1980, Scottish Television debuted Take the High Road, which lasted for over twenty years. Later, daytime slots were filled with an influx of Australian soap operas such as The Sullivans (aired on ITV from 1977), The Young Doctors (from 1982), Sons and Daughters (from 1983), A Country Practice (from 1982), Richmond Hill (from 1988 to 1989) and eventually, Neighbours was acquired by the BBC in 1986, and Home and Away aired on ITV beginning in 1989. These achieved significant levels of popularity; Neighbours and Home and Away were moved to early-evening slots, helping begin the UK soap opera boom in the late 1980s.

The day Channel 4 began operations in 1982 it launched its own soap, the Liverpool-based , which would redefine soaps over the next decade. The focus of Brookside was different from earlier soap operas in the UK; it was set in a middle-class new-build cul-de-sac, unlike Coronation Street and Emmerdale Farm, which were set in established working-class communities. The characters in Brookside were generally either people who had advanced themselves from inner-city council estates, or the upper middle-class who had fallen on hard times. Though Brookside was still broadcast in a pre- watershed slot (8.00 p.m. and 8.30 p.m. on weekdays, around 5.00 p.m. for the omnibus on Saturdays), it was more liberal than other soaps of the time: the dialogue regularly included expletives. This stemmed from the overall more liberal policy of the channel during that period. The soap was also heavily politicised. Bobby Grant ( Ricky Tomlinson), a militant trade-unionist anti-hero, was the most overtly political character. Storylines were often more sensationalist than on other soaps (throughout the soap's history, there were two armed sieges on the street) and were staged with more violence (particularly, rape) often being featured.

In 1985, the BBC's EastEnders debuted and became a near instant success with viewers and critics alike, with the first episode attracting over 17 million viewers. The Christmas Day 1986 episode was watched by 30.15 million viewers and contained a scene in which divorce papers were served to Angie Watts ( Anita Dobson) by her husband, Queen Vic landlord Den ( Leslie Grantham).

A notable success in pioneering late-night broadcasting, in October 1984, Yorkshire Television began airing the cult Australian soap opera , which originally ran from 1979 to 1986. It was eventually broadcast on all regions of the UK in differing slots, usually around 23:00 (but never before 22:30 in any region), under the title Prisoner: Cell Block H. It was probably most popular in the Midlands where Central Television consistently broadcast the serial three times a week from 1987 to 1991. Its airing in the UK was staggered, so different regions of the country saw it at a different pace. The program was immensely successful, regularly achieving 10 million viewers when all regions' ratings per episode were added together. Central bowed to fan pressure to repeat the soap, of which the first 95 episodes aired. Then, rival station Channel 5 also acquired rights to repeat the entire rerun of the program, starting in 1997. All 692 episodes have since been released on DVD in the UK.

In 1992, the BBC made to daily alternate with EastEnders. The programme was heavily criticised and only lasted one year. Nevertheless, soap operas gained increasing prominence on UK television schedules. In 1995, Channel 4 premiered , a soap with a youth focus. When Channel 5 launched in March 1997, it debuted the soap opera Family Affairs, which was formatted as a week-daily soap, airing Monday through Fridays.

Brookside's premise evolved during the 1990s, phasing out the politicised stories of the 1980s and shifting the emphasis to controversial and sensationalist stories such as child rape, sibling incest, religious cults and drug addiction, including the infamous 'body under the patio' storyline that ran from 1993 to 1995, and gave the serial its highest ratings ever with 9 million viewers.

Coronation Street and Brookside began releasing straight-to-video features. The Coronation Street releases generally kept the pace and style of conventional programs episodes with the action set in foreign locations. The Brookside releases were set in the usual locations, but featured stories with adult content not allowed on television pre-watershed, with these releases given '18' certificates.

Emmerdale Farm was renamed Emmerdale in 1989. The series was revamped in 1993 with many changes executed via the crash of a passenger jet that partially destroyed the village and killed several characters. This attracted criticism as it was broadcast near the fifth anniversary of the Lockerbie bombing. The storyline drew the soap its highest ever audience of 18 million viewers. The revamp was a success and Emmerdale grew in popularity.

Throughout the 1990s, Brookside, Coronation Street, EastEnders and Emmerdale continued to flourish. Each increased the number of episodes that aired on a weekly basis by at least one, further defining soap operas as the leading genre in British television.

Since 2000, new soap operas have continued to be developed. Daytime serial began in March 2000, preceding Neighbours on BBC One. In 2002, as ratings for the Scottish serial High Road (formerly Take The High Road) continued to decline, BBC Scotland launched , which proved popular and effectively replaced High Road when it was cancelled in 2003. The long-running serial Brookside ended in November 2003 after 21 years on the air, leaving Hollyoaks as Channel 4's flagship serial.

A new version of Crossroads featuring a mostly new cast was produced by Carlton Television for ITV in 2001. It did not achieve high ratings and was cancelled in 2003. In 2001, ITV also launched a new early-evening serial entitled Night and Day. This program too attracted low viewership and, after being shifted to a late night time slot, was cancelled in 2003. Family Affairs, which was broadcast opposite the racier Hollyoaks, never achieved significantly high ratings leading to several dramatic casting revamps and marked changes in style and even location over its run. By 2004, Family Affairs had a larger fan base and won its first awards, but was cancelled in late 2005.

In 2008, ITV premiered The Royal Today, a daily spin-off of popular 1960s-based drama , which had been running in a primetime slot since 2002. Just days later, soap opera parody programs premiered alongside its sister show, the comedy Moving Wallpaper. Both Echo Beach and The Royal Today ended after just one series due to low ratings. Radio soap opera Silver Street debuted on the BBC Asian Network in 2004. Poor ratings and criticism of the program led to its cancellation in 2010.

UK soap operas for many years usually only aired two nights a week. The exception was the original Crossroads, which began as a week-daily soap opera in the 1960s, but later had its number of weekly broadcasts reduced.

In 1989, Coronation Street began airing three times a week. In 1996, it expanded to four episodes a week.

Brookside premiered in 1982 with two episodes a week. In 1990 it expanded to three episodes a week.

EastEnders increased its number of episodes a week in 1994 and Emmerdale did so in 1997.

Family Affairs debuted as a weekdaily soap in 1997, producing five episodes a week its entire run.

In 2004, Emmerdale began airing six episodes a week.

In a January 2008 overhaul of the ITV network, the Sunday episodes of Coronation Street and Emmerdale were moved out of their slots. Coronation Street added a second episode on Friday evenings at 8:30 p.m. Emmerdale's Tuesday edition was extended to an hour, putting it in direct competition with EastEnders. In July 2009, the schedules of these serials were changed again. On 23 July 2009, Coronation Street moved from the Wednesday slot it held for 49 years, to Thursday evenings. Emmerdale reverted to running just one 30-minute episode on Tuesday evenings and the other 30-minute installment was moved to Thursday evenings. Coronation Street later returned to a Wednesday slot, to air Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 19:30 and 20:30. Emmerdale airs at 19:00 every weeknight, and 20:00 on Thursdays.

Later, Coronation Street (which began airing two episodes on Monday nights in 2002) produced five episodes a week.

It was announced in June 2016 that starting late 2017, Coronation Street would air six episodes a week.

Doctors airs five episodes a week, and is the only soap without a weekend omnibus repeat screening. Hollyoaks produces five episodes a week. The imported Neighbours screens as five new episodes a week. As of 2019, EastEnders produces four episodes a week.

UK soap operas are shot on videotape in the studio using a multi-camera setup. In their early years, Coronation Street and Emmerdale used 16 mm film for footage shot on location. Since the 1980s, UK soap opera have routinely featured scenes shot outdoors in each episode. This footage is shot on videotape on a purpose-built outdoor set that represents the community that the soap focuses on.

Hollyoaks and Family Affairs were taped on high-definition video, and used the filmizing process.

Australia has had quite a number of well-known soap operas, some of which have gained cult followings in the United Kingdom, New Zealand and other countries. The majority of Australian television soap operas are produced for early evening or evening timeslots. They usually produce two or two-and-a-half hours of new material each week, either arranged as four or five half-hour episodes a week, or as two one-hour episodes.

Stylistically, these series most closely resemble UK soap operas in that they are nearly always shot on videotape, are mainly recorded in a studio and use a multi-camera setup. The original Australian serials were shot entirely in-studio. During the 1970s occasional filmed inserts were used to incorporate sequences shot outdoors. Outdoor shooting later became commonplace and starting in the late 1970s, it became standard practice for some on-location footage to be featured in each episode of any Australian soap opera, often to capitalise on the attractiveness and exotic nature of these locations for international audiences. Most Australian soap operas focus on a mixed age range of middle-class characters and will regularly feature a range of locations where the various, disparate characters can meet and interact, such as the café, the surf club, the wine bar or the school.

The genre began in Australia on radio, as it had in the United States and the United Kingdom. One such radio serial, Big Sister, featured actress Thelma Scott in the cast and aired nationally for five years beginning in 1942. Probably the best known Australian radio serial was the long-running soap opera , which was created by Gwen Meredith and ran from 1949 to 1976. With the advent of Australian television in 1956, daytime television serials followed. The first Australian television soap opera was Autumn Affair (1958) featuring radio personality and Blue Hills star Queenie Ashton making the transition to television. Each episode of this serial ran for 15 minutes and aired each weekday on the Seven Network. Autumn Affair failed to secure a sponsor and ended in 1959 after 156 episodes. It was followed by The Story of Peter Grey (1961), another Seven Network weekday series aired in a daytime slot in 15-minute installments. The Story of Peter Grey ran for 164 episodes.

The first successful wave of Australian evening television soap operas started in 1967 with , produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. This rural-based serial screened in an early evening slot in 15-minute installments as a lead-in to the evening news. Bellbird was a moderate success but built-up a consistent and loyal viewer base, especially in rural areas, and enjoyed a ten-year run. (1968) was Australia's first half-hour soap opera; the daytime soap had a short run of 132 episodes.

The first major soap opera hit in Australia was the sex-melodrama , a nighttime series produced by Cash Harmon Television for Network 10, which debuted March 1972. The program dealt with such topics as homosexuality, adultery, drug use, rape-within-marriage and racism, which had rarely been explored on Australian television programs before. The series became famous for its sex scenes and nudity and for its comedic characters, many of whom became cult heroes in Australia. By 1973, Number 96 had become Australia's highest-rated show. In 1974, the sexed-up antics of Number 96 prompted the creation of , which rivaled it in terms of nudity and sexual situations and was scheduled in a nighttime slot. Produced by Crawford Productions, many critics considered The Box to be a more slickly produced and better written show than Number 96. The Box also aired on the Ten Network, programmed to run right after Number 96. For 1974 Number 96 was again the highest rating show on Australian television, and that year The Box occupied the number two spot.

Also in 1974, the Reg Grundy Organisation created its first soap opera, and significantly Australia's first teen soap opera, . With its attempts to hint at the sex and sin shown more openly on Number 96 and The Box, its high school setting and early evening timeslot, Class of '74 came under intense scrutiny from the Broadcasting Control Board, who vetted scripts and altered entire storylines.

By 1975, both Number 96 and The Box, perhaps as a reaction to declining ratings for both shows, de-emphasised the sex and nudity shifting more towards comedic plots. Class of '74 was renamed Class of '75 and also added more slapstick comedy for its second year, but the revamped show's ratings declined, resulting in its cancellation in mid-1975. That year Cash Harmon's newly launched second soap The Unisexers failed in its early evening slot and was cancelled after three weeks; the Reg Grundy Organisation's second soap Until Tomorrow ran in a daytime slot for 180 episodes.

A feature film version of Bellbird entitled Country Town was produced in 1971 by two of the show's stars, Gary Gray and Terry McDermott, without production involvement by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Number 96 and The Box also released feature film versions, both of which had the same title as the series, released in 1974 and 1975 respectively. As Australian television had broadcast in black and white until 1975, these theatrical releases all had the novelty of being in colour. The film versions of Number 96 and The Box also allowed more explicit nudity than could be shown on television at that time.

In November 1976 The Young Doctors debuted on the Nine Network. This Grundy Organization series eschewed the adult drama of Number 96 and The Box, focusing more on relationship drama and romance. It became a popular success but received few critical accolades. A week later The Sullivans, a carefully produced period serial chronicling the effects of World War II on a Melbourne family, also debuted on Nine. Produced by Crawford Productions, The Sullivans became a ratings success, attracted many positive reviews, and won television awards. During this period Number 96 re-introduced nudity into its episodes, with several much-publicised full-frontal nude scenes, a cast revamp and a new range of shock storylines designed to boost the show's declining ratings. Bellbird experienced changes to its broadcast pattern with episodes screening in 60 minute blocks, and later in 30 minute installments.

Bellbird, Number 96 and The Box, which had been experiencing declining ratings, were cancelled in 1977. Various attempts to revamp each of the shows with cast reshuffles or spectacular disaster storylines had proved only temporarily successful. The Young Doctors and The Sullivans continued to be popular. November 1977 saw the launch of successful soap opera/ police procedural series (1977-1984) produced by Crawford Productions for Channel Seven. In early December 1977 Channel Ten debuted the Reg Grundy Organisation produced The Restless Years (1977-1981), a more standard soap drama focusing on several young school leavers.

The Seven Network, achieving success with Cop Shop produced by Crawford Productions, had Crawfords produce , a series with a similar format but set in an airport, to compete with the Nine Network's popular talk show The Don Lane Show. Skyways, which debuted in July 1979, emphasised adult situations including homosexuality, marriage problems, adultery, prostitution, drug use and smuggling, crime, suicide, political intrigue, and murder, and featured some nudity. Despite this, the program achieved only moderate ratings and was cancelled in mid-1981.

The Reg Grundy Organisation found major success with the women's-prison drama (1979-1986) on Network Ten, and melodramatic family saga Sons and Daughters (1982-1987) on the Seven Network. Both shows achieved high ratings in their original runs, and unusually, found success in repeats after the programs ended.

Grundy soap The Young Doctors and Crawford Productions' The Sullivans continued on the Nine Network until late 1982. Thereafter Nine attempted many new replacement soap operas produced by the Reg Grundy Organisation: Taurus Rising (1982), Waterloo Station (1983), Starting Out (1983) and Possession (1985), along with (1986) produced by Crawford Productions. None of these programs were successful and most were cancelled after only a few months. The Reg Grundy Organisation also created Neighbours, a suburban-based daily serial devised as a sedate family drama with some comedic and lightweight situations, for the Seven Network in 1985.

Produced in Melbourne at the studios of HSV-7, Neighbours achieved high ratings in Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide, but not in Sydney, where it aired at 5.30 p.m. placing it against the hit dating game show Perfect Match on Channel 10. The Seven Network's Sydney station ATN-7 quickly lost interest in Neighbours as a result of the low ratings in Sydney. HSV-7 in Melbourne lobbied heavily to keep Neighbours on the air, but ATN-7 managed to convince the rest of the network to cancel the show and instead keep ATN-7's own Sydney-based dramas A Country Practice and Sons and Daughters.

After the network cancelled Neighbours, it was immediately picked up by Channel Ten, which revamped the cast and scripts slightly and aired the series in the 7.00 p.m. slot starting 20 January 1986. It initially attracted low audiences; however, after a concerted publicity drive, Ten managed to transform the series into a major success, turning several of its actors into major international stars. The show's popularity eventually declined and it was moved to the 6.30 p.m. slot in 1992. In January 2011 it moved to Eleven and is Australia's longest-running soap opera.

The success of Neighbours in the 1980s prompted the creation of somewhat similar suburban and family or teen-oriented soap operas such as Home and Away (1988-present) on Channel Seven and Richmond Hill (1988) on Channel Ten. Both proved popular, however Richmond Hill emerged as only a moderate success and was cancelled after one year to be replaced on Ten by (1989-1993).

Nine continued trying to establish a successful new soap opera, without success. After the failure of family drama Family and Friends in 1990, it launched the raunchier and more extreme in 1991, which resurrected the sex and melodrama of Number 96 and The Box in an attempt to attract attention. Chances achieved only moderate ratings, and was moved to a late-night timeslot. It underwent several revamps that removed much of the original cast, and refocused the storylines to incorporate science-fiction and fantasy elements. The series continued in a late night slot until 1992, when it was cancelled due to low ratings despite the much-discussed fantasy storylines.

Several Australian soap operas have also found significant international success. In the UK, starting in the mid-1980s, daytime broadcasts of The Young Doctors, The Sullivans, Sons and Daughters and Neighbours (which itself was subsequently moved to an early-evening slot) achieved significant success. Grundy's Prisoner began airing in the United States in 1979 and achieved high ratings in many regions there, however, the show ended its run in that country three years into its run. Prisoner also aired in late-night timeslots in the UK beginning in the late 1980s, achieving enduring cult success there. The show became so popular in that country that it prompted the creation of two stage plays and a stage musical based on the show, all of which toured the UK, among many other spin-offs. In the late 1990s, Channel 5 repeated Prisoner in the UK. Between 1998 and 2005, Channel 5 ran late-night repeats of Sons and Daughters. During the 1980s, the Australian attempts to emulate big-budget U.S. soap operas such as Dallas and Dynasty had resulted in the debuts of Taurus Rising and Return to Eden, two slick soap opera dramas with big budgets that were shot entirely on film. Though their middling Australian ratings resulted in the shows running only for a single season, both programs were successfully sold internationally.

Other shows to achieve varying levels of international success include Richmond Hill, E Street, Paradise Beach (1993-1994), and Pacific Drive (1995-1997). Indeed, these last two series were designed specifically for international distribution. Channel Seven's Home and Away, a teen soap developed as a rival to Neighbours, has also achieved significant and enduring success on UK television.

Something in the Air, a serial examining a range of characters in a small country town ran on the ABC from 2000 to 2002.

Attempts to replicate the success of daily teen-oriented serials Neighbours and Home and Away saw the creation of (1995) and (1999) on Network Ten. These programs foregrounded youthful attractive casts and appealing locations but the programs were not long-running successes and Neighbours and Home and Away remained the most visible and consistently successful Australian soap operas in production. In their home country, they both attracted respectable although not spectacular ratings in the early 2000s. By 2004, Neighbours was regularly attracting just under a million viewers per episode - considered at that time a low figure for Australian prime time television. By March 2007, the Australian audience for Neighbours had fallen to fewer than 700,000 a night. This prompted a revamp of the show's cast, its visual presentation, and a move away from the recently added action-oriented emphasis to refocus the show on the domestic storylines it is traditionally known for. During this period Neighbours and Home and Away continued to achieve significant ratings in the UK. This and other lucrative overseas markets, along with Australian broadcasting laws that enforce a minimum amount of domestic drama production on commercial television networks, help ensure that both programs remain in production. Both shows get higher total ratings in the UK than in Australia (the UK has three times the total population of Australia) and the UK channels make a major contribution to the production costs.

It has been suggested that with their emphasis on the younger, attractive and charismatic characters, Neighbours and Home and Away have found success in the middle ground between glamorous, fantastic U.S. soaps with their wealthy but tragic heroes and the more grim, naturalistic UK soap operas populated by older, unglamorous characters. The casts of Neighbours and Home and Away are predominantly younger and more attractive than the casts of UK soaps, and without excessive wealth and glamour of the U.S. daytime serial, a middle-ground in which they have found their lucrative niche.

Neighbours was carried in the United States on the Oxygen cable channel in March 2004; however it attracted few viewers, perhaps in part due to its scheduling opposite well-established and highly popular U.S. soap operas such as All My Children and The Young and the Restless, and was dropped by the network shortly afterwards due to low ratings.

made its debut on Channel Seven in November 2005, the series arose out of a proposed spinoff of Home and Away that was to have been produced in conjunction with Home and Away's UK broadcaster, Channel 5. The idea for the spin-off was scuttled after Five pulled out of the deal, which meant that the show could potentially air on a rival channel in the UK; as such, Five requested that the new show be developed as a standalone series and not be spun off from a series that it owned a stake in. The series premiered in Australia on November 15, 2005, but was not a ratings success and was cancelled two months later on January 23, 2006. The series broadcast on E4 and Channel 4 in the UK. Nickelodeon's appeared in July 2006 on Network Ten. Since Connie considered this mention as a torrid soap opera, this was mentioned in the Steven Universe episode "Love Letters".

After losing the UK television rights to Neighbours to Five, the BBC commissioned a replacement serial Out of the Blue, which was produced in Australia. It debuted as part of BBC One's weekday afternoon schedule on 28 April 2008 but low ratings prompted its move to BBC Two on 19 May 2008. The series was cancelled after its first season.

Neighbours' continued low ratings in Australia resulted in it being moved to Ten's new digital channel, Eleven on January 11, 2011. However, it continues to achieve reasonable ratings on Channel 5 in the United Kingdom, and as of March 2013 still reportedly achieved significant international sales.

Pioneering series aired over two years (1971-72) and was the NZBC's first continuing drama. It followed the goings-on of a North Island timber town.Close to Home is a New Zealand television soap opera that ran on TVNZ 1 from 1975 to 1983. At its peak in 1977 nearly one million viewers tuned in twice weekly to watch the series co-created by Michael Noonan and Tony Isaac (who had initially only agreed to make the show on the condition they would get to make The Governor). is a television drama series that screened from 1987 to 1990. The series is about a fictional publishing empire run by the Redfern family. Gloss was NZ's answer to US soap Dynasty, with the Carrington oil scions replaced by the wealthy Redferns and their Auckland magazine empire. It was a starting point for many actors who went on to many productions in New Zealand, Australia and around the world including Temuera Morrison, Miranda Harcourt, Peter Elliott, Lisa Chappell, Danielle Cormack and Kevin Smith. Many of them would go on to star in Shortland Street, which has been New Zealand's most popular soap since its debut in 1992. It airs on TVNZ 2.

Radio New Zealand began airing its first radio soap in September 2010. It is available for podcast on its website.

Relatively few daily soap operas have been produced on English Canadian television, with most Canadian stations and networks that carry soap operas airing those imported from the United States or the United Kingdom. Notable daily soaps that did exist included Family Passions, Scarlett Hill, Strange Paradise, , and the international co-production Foreign Affairs. Family Passions was an hour-long program, as is typical of American daytime soaps; all of the others ran half-hour episodes. Unlike American or British soap operas, the most influential of which have run for years or even decades, even daily Canadian soap operas have run for a few seasons at most. Short-run soaps, including and North/South, have also aired. Many of these were produced in an effort to comply with Canadian content regulations, which require a percentage of programming on Canadian television to originate from Canada.

Notable prime time soap operas in Canada have included , House of Pride, Paradise Falls, Lance et Compte ("He Shoots, He Scores"), Loving Friends and Perfect Couples and . The Degrassi franchise of youth dramas also incorporated some elements of the soap opera format.

On French-language television in Quebec, the has been a popular mainstay of network programming since the 1950s. Notable téléromans have included Rue des Pignons, Les Belles Histoires des pays d'en haut, , La famille Plouffe, and the soap opera parody Le Cœur a ses raisons.

Unlike the season based production in most countries, most of Indian television fiction tends to be regular-broadcasting soap opera. These started in the 1980s, as more and more people began to purchase television sets. At the beginning of the 21st century, soap operas became an integral part of Indian culture. Indian soap operas mostly concentrate on the conflict between love and arranged marriages occurring in India, and many includes family melodrama. Indian soap operas have multilingual production.

Many soap operas produced in India are also broadcast overseas in the UK, Canada, the United States, and some parts of Europe, South Africa, Australia and South East Asia. They are often mass-produced under large production banners, with companies like Balaji Telefilms running different language versions of the same serial on different television networks or channels.

The Australian serial The Restless Years was remade in the Netherlands as Goede tijden, slechte tijden (which debuted in 1990) and in Germany as Gute Zeiten, schlechte Zeiten (which has aired since 1992): both titles translate to "good times, bad times". These remakes are still airing, but have long since diverged from the original Australian storylines. The two shows are the highest-rated soap operas in their respective countries.

A later Australian serial, Sons and Daughters, has inspired five remakes produced under license from the original producers and based, initially, on original story and character outlines. These are Verbotene Liebe (Germany, 1995-2015); Skilda världar ( Sweden, 1996-2002); Apagorevmeni agapi ( Greece, 1998); Cuori Rubati ( Italy, 2002-2003) and Zabranjena ljubav ( Croatia, 2004-2008). Both The Restless Years and Sons and Daughters were created and produced in Australia by the Reg Grundy Organisation.

Another Australian soap opera reformatted for a European audience was which ran on Network 10 in Australia from 1989 to 1993. Germany produced 37 episodes of Westerdeich ("Westside") in 1995 using scripts from 1989 episodes of E Street. It was also remade in Belgium as Wittekerke ("Whitechurch") and ran from 1993 to 2008.

The Norwegian soap opera Hotel Cæsar aired on TV 2 from 1998 to 2017, and is the longest-running television drama in Scandinavia. Popular foreign soaps in the country include Days of Our Lives (broadcast on TV6 (Norway), The Bold and the Beautiful (TNT (Norway) and Home and Away ( TV 2), all of which are subtitled.

Serials have included Goede tijden, slechte tijden (1990-present), Onderweg naar Morgen (1994-2010) and Goudkust (1996-2001). In 2016 Goede tijden, slechte tijden spin-off Nieuwe Tijden started airing. U.S. daytime serials As The World Turns and The Bold and the Beautiful have aired in the Netherlands; As the World Turns began airing in the country in 1990, with Dutch subtitles.

In the 1980s, West German networks successfully added American daytime and primetime soap operas to their schedule before Das Erste introduced its first self-produced weekly soap with Lindenstraße, which was seen as a German counterpart to Coronation Street. Like in other countries, the soap opera met with negative reviews, but eventually proved critics wrong with nearly 13 million viewers tuning in each week. Even though the format proved successful, it was not until 1992 before Gute Zeiten, schlechte Zeiten became the first German daily soap opera. Early ratings were bad as were the reviews, but the RTL network was willing to give its first soap opera a chance; ratings would improve, climbing to 7 million viewers by 2002. Not long after Gute Zeiten, schlechte Zeiten, Das Erste introduced , which aired twice a week.

After successfully creating the first German daily soap, production company Grundy Ufa wanted to produce another soap for RTL. Like GZSZ, the format was based on an Australian soap opera from Reg Watson. But RTL did not like the plot idea about separated twins who meet each other for the first time after 20 years and fall in love without knowing that they are related. The project was then taken to Das Erste, which commissioned the program, titled Verbotene Liebe, which premiered on January 2, 1995. With the premiere of Verbotene Liebe, the network turned Marienhof into a daily soap as well. In the meanwhile, RTL debuted the Grundy Ufa-produced in late 1994.

ZDF started a business venture with Canada and co-produced the short-lived series Family Passions, starring actors such as Gordon Thomson, Roscoe Born, Dietmar Schönherr and a young Hayden Christensen. The daytime serial premiered on December 5, 1994, lasting 130 episodes. After its cancellation, the network debuted Jede Menge Leben. Even after a crossover with three soaps, Freunde fürs Leben, Forsthaus Falkenau and Unser Lehrer Doktor Specht, the soap was canceled after 313 episodes. Sat.1 tried to get into the soap business as well, after successfully airing the Australian soap opera Neighbours, which was dropped in 1995 due to the talk show phenomenon that took over most of the daytime schedules of German networks. The network first tried to tell a family saga with So ist das Leben! Die Wagenfelds, before failing with Geliebte Schwestern. RTL II made its own short-lived attempt with Alle zusammen - jeder für sich.

The teen soap opera Schloss Einstein debuted on September 4, 1998, focusing on the life of a group of teenagers at the fictional titular boarding school near Berlin. As of July 2014, the series has produced over 815 episodes during the course of 17 seasons, a milestone in German television programming, and was renewed for an 18th season to debut in 2015.

In 1999, after the lasting success of Gute Zeiten, schlechte Zeiten, Marienhof, Unter uns and Verbotene Liebe, ProSieben aired Mallorca - Suche nach dem Paradies, set on the Spanish island with the same name. After nine months, the network canceled the program due to low viewership and high production costs. Even though ratings had improved, the show ended its run in a morning timeslot. The soap opera became something of a cult classic, as its 200-episode run was repeated several times on free-to-air and pay television.

In 2006, Alles was zählt became the last successful daily soap to make its debut, airing as a lead-in to Gute Zeiten, schlechte Zeiten and also produced by Grundy Ufa. Since Germany started to produce its own telenovelas, all soap operas faced declines in ratings. Unter uns was in danger of cancellation in 2009, but escaped such a fate due to budget cuts imposed by the show's producers and the firing of original cast member Holger Franke, whose firing and the death of his character outraged fans, resulting in a ratings spike in early 2010. After Unter uns was saved, Das Erste planned to make changes to its soap lineup. Marienhof had to deal with multiple issues in its storytelling, as well as in producing a successful half-hour show. Several changes were made within months, however Marienhof was canceled in June 2011. Verbotene Liebe was in danger of being cancelled as well, but convinced the network to renew it with changes that it made in both 2010 and 2011; the soap was later expanded to 45 minutes after Marienhof was canceled, and the network tried to decide on whether to revamp its lineup.

While Gute Zeiten, schlechte Zeiten, Unter uns and Alles was zählt are currently the only daily soaps on the air after Verbotene Liebe has been cancelled and aired its last episode in June, 2015 due to low ratings, the telenovelas Sturm der Liebe and are considered soaps by the press as well, thanks to the changing protagonists every season.

In Belgium, the two major soap operas are ("Home") and ("Family"), both prime time soap operas. Soap operas have been very popular in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium. Familie debuted in late 1991, and with more han 6,700 half-hour episodes, it has the highest episode total of any soap in Europe outside of the United Kingdom. The highest-rated soap opera is Thuis, which has aired on " één" since late 1995. Thuis is often one of the five most-watched Belgian shows and regularly garners over one million viewers (with 6.6 million Flemings in total).

During the 1990s, foreign soap operas such as Neighbours and The Bold and the Beautiful were extremely popular, the latter having achieved a cult status in Belgium and airing in the middle of the decade during prime time. Both soaps still air today, along with other foreign soaps such as Days of Our Lives, Australia's Home and Away and Germany's "Sturm der Liebe". Vitaya unsuccessful attempted to air the Dutch soap opera " Goede Tijden, Slechte Tijden" in 2010. Other foreign soaps that previously aired on Belgian television include The Young and the Restless, EastEnders (both on VTM), "Port Charles" (at één, then known as TV1) and "Coronation Street" (on Vitaya). " Santa Barbara" aired during the 1990s on VTM for its entire run.

In early 2000s, the only teen soap opera on Belgian television was ("Jump" in English), which aired on the youth-oriented Ketnet and produced over 600 15-minute episodes from late 2002 until 2009, when it was cancelled after a steady decline in ratings following the departures of many of its original characters.

The most successful soap opera in Italy is the evening series Un posto al sole ("A Place Under the Sun"), which had aired on Rai 3 since 1996 (whose format is based on the Australian soap opera Neighbours). Several other Italian soaps have been produced such as Ricominciare ("Starting Over"), Cuori rubati ("Stolen Hearts"), Vivere ("Living"), Sottocasa ("Downstairs"), Agrodolce ("Bittersweet") and Centovetrine ("Hundred Shop Windows").

The most popular Italian prime-time soap opera, Incantesimo ("Enchantment"), which ran from 1998 to 2008, became a daytime soap opera for the final two years of its run, airing five days a week on Rai 1. The same happened with Il paradiso delle signore ( Woman's Paradise), a period drama, which ran from 2015 to 2017 in prime-time, and became a daytime period soap opera from 2018.

In the early years of RTÉ, the network produced several dramas but had not come close to launching a long-running serial. RTÉ's first television soap was Tolka Row, which was set in urban Dublin. For several years, both Tolka Row and The Riordans were produced by RTÉ; however, the urban soap was soon dropped in favor of the more popular rural soap opera The Riordans, which premiered in 1965. Executives from Yorkshire Television visited during on-location shoots for The Riordans in the early 1970s and in 1972, debuted Emmerdale Farm (now Emmerdale), based on the successful format of the Irish soap opera. In the late 1970s, The Riordans was controversially dropped. The creator of that series would then go on to produce the second of his "Agri-soap" trilogy , starring Gabriel Byrne, whose character had appeared in the last few seasons of The Riordans. Bracken was soon replaced by the third "Agri-soap" , which ran until 2001. As RTÉ wanted a drama series for its Sunday night lineup rather than a soap opera, On Home Ground (2001-2002), (2002-2009) and (2010-2013) replaced the agri-soaps of the previous decades.

In 1989, RTÉ decided to produce its first Dublin-based soap opera since the 1960s. , which is set in the fictional city of Carrickstown, initially aired one night a week during the 1989-90 season, and similar to its rural soaps, much of the footage was filmed on location - in a suburb of Dublin City. In 1992, RTÉ made a major investment into the series by copying the houses used in the on-location shoots for an on-site set in RTÉ's Headquarters in Dublin 4. By the early 1990s, it was airing two nights a week for 35 weeks a year. With competition from the UK soap operas, RTÉ expanded Fair City to three nights a week for most of the year and one night a week during the summer in 1996, later expanding to four nights a week and two nights during the summer. Until the early 2000s, the series produced four episodes a week, airing all 52 weeks of the year. Fair City airs Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays at 8.00 p.m. GMT on RTÉ One; however, after rival network TV3 moved Coronation Street to Thursday night, the Wednesday night episode of Fair City began airing at 7:30 p.m. each week.

TG4 produce the Irish language soap ("Headland of the Secrets" or "Headland of the Sweethearts"); set in the fictional village of Ros Na Rún, located outside Galway and near Spiddal, it centres on the domestic and professional lives of the town's residents. It is modeled on an average village in the West of Ireland, but with its own distinct personality - with a diverse population that share secrets, romances and friendships among other things. While the core community has remained the same, the look and feel of Ros Na Rún has changed and evolved over the years to incorporate the changing face of rural Ireland. It has an established a place not only in the hearts and minds of the Irish speaking public, but also the wider Irish audience. The program has dealt with many topics, including domestic violence, infidelity, theft, arson, abortion, homosexuality, adoption, murder, rape, drugs, teen pregnancy and paedophilia. It runs twice a week for 35 weeks of the year, currently airing Tuesday and Thursday nights. Ros na Rún is the single largest independent production commissioned in the history of Irish broadcasting. Prior to TG4's launch, it originally aired on RTÉ One in the early 1990s.

Although Ireland has access to international soaps (such as Coronation Street, Emmerdale, EastEnders, Home and Away, Hollyoaks and Neighbours), Fair City continues to outperform them all, and is Ireland's most popular soap opera, with the show peaking at over 700,000 viewers.

January 2015 Red Rock has broadcast on TV3. Red Rock airs twice a week on Wednesday and Thursday nights. The series is base in a fishing village in Dublin. The soaps centres around the local Garda station but also includes stories from the village.

RTÉ Radio produced its first radio soap, Kennedys of Castleross, which ran from April 13, 1955, to 1975. In 1979 RTÉ long running TV soap The Riordans moved to Radio until December 24, 1985. In the mid-1980s, RTÉ debuted a new radio soap, Harbour Hotel, which ran until the mid-1990s. The network later ran two short-lived radio soaps, Konvenience Korner and Riverrun, which were followed in 2004 by Driftwood. RTÉ does not run any radio soaps, however RTÉ Radio 1 continues to air radio dramas as part of its nighttime schedule.

Rue Carnot (1984-1987) : Aired on Canal+.

Riviera (1991-1992) : Aired on TF1.

Les vacances de l'amour (1996-2007) : Aired on TF1. Third series and first soap opera in the Hélène et les Garçons franchise.

Cœur Océan (2006-2011) : Aired on France 2.

Baie des flamboyants (2007-2008) : Aired on France Ô.

Foudre (2007-2011) : Aired on France 2.

Seconde Chance (2008-2009) : Aired on TF1.

Cinq Sœurs (2008) : Aired on France 2.

Les Mystères de l'amour (since 2011) : Broadcast by TMC. Fourth series and second soap opera in the Hélène et les Garçons franchise.

Les Flamboyants : (2011-2012) : A spin-off of Baie des flamboyants, aired on France Ô.

Sous le soleil de Saint-Tropez (2013-2014) : A spin-off of Sous le soleil, aired on TMC.

Cut ! (2013-2019) : Aired on France Ô.

Un si grand soleil (since 2018) : Broadcast by France 2.

OPJ, Pacifique Sud (since 2019) : Broadcast by France Ô.

Grand Hôtel (since 2020) : Broadcast by TF1.

Ici Tout Commence (since 2020) : Shown on TF1 on Monday to Friday evenings.

In Greece, there have been several soap operas.

An early serial was Sti skia tou hrimatos ("Money Shadows"), which ran from 1990 to 1991. September 1991 saw the debut of Lampsi ("the Shining"), from creator Nicos Foskolos. The series would become Greece's longest-running soap opera. After the success of Lampsi came the short lived To galazio diamandi ("Blue Diamond") and Simphonia siopis ("Omertà"). Lampsi was canceled in June 2005 due to declining ratings. It was replaced by Erotas ("Love"), a soap that ran from 2005 to 2008. After that series ended, ANT1 abandoned the soap opera genre and focused on comedy series and weekly dramas.

Greece's second longest-running soap is Kalimera Zoi ("Goodmorning Life"), which ran from September 1993 until its cancellation in June 2006 due to low ratings.

Mega Channel began producing soap operas in 1990 with the prime time serial I Dipsa ("The Thirst"), which ran for 102 episodes. Other daytime soaps have included Paralliloi dromoi (1992-1994) and its successor Haravgi ("Daylight", 1994-1995), both of which were cancelled due to low viewership; as well as the serials Apagorevmeni Agapi ("Forbidden Love"), which ran from 1998 to 2006; Gia mia thesi ston Ilio ("A Spot Under the Sun"), which ran from 1998 to 2002; Filodoxies ("Expectations"), which ran from 2002 to 2006; and Vera Sto Deksi ("Ring on the Right Hand"), which ran from 2004 to 2006 and proved to be a successful competitor to Lampsi, causing that show's ratings to decline.

Ta Mistika Tis Edem ("Edem Secrets"), which was created by the producers of Vera Sto Deksi, debuted in 2008 and has eclipsed that show's success. Its ratings place it consistently among the three highest-rated daytime programs.

IENED (which was renamed ERT2 in 1982) was responsible for the first Greek soap operas I Kravgi Ton Likon and Megistanes. ERT also produced the long-running soap O Simvoleografos. Since 2000 and with the introduction of private television, ERT produced additional daily soap operas, which included Pathos ("Passion"), Erotika tis Edem ("Loving in Eden") and Ta ftera tou erota ("The Wings of Love"). These failed to achieve high ratings and were canceled shortly after their premiere.

Alpha produced Kato apo tin Acropoli ("Under the Acropolis"), which ran for 2½ years.

The first daytime soap opera produced by a Cyprus channel was LOGOs TV's Odos Den Ksehno ("'Don't Forget' Street"), which ran from January to December 1996. It was followed by To Serial, which also ran for one year from September 1997 to June 1998. CyBC created the third weekdaily soap, Anemi Tou Pathous ("Passion Winds"), running from January 2000 to June 2004, which was replaced by I Platia ("The Square") from September 2004 to July 2006. Epikindini Zoni ran from 2009 to 2010, and was cancelled after 120 episodes. Vimata Stin Ammo made its debut in September 2010.

Sigma TV first commissioned the weekdaily comedic soap Sto Para Pente, which aired from September 1998 to June 2004, and was the longest weekday show in Cyprus television history, before it was surpassed by Se Fonto Kokkino, which ran from September 2008 to July 2012. Other Sigma TV weekday shows include Akti Oniron (which ran from 1999 to 2001), Vourate Geitonoi (which ran from 2001 to 2005, and was the most successful weekdaily series, achieving ratings shares of up to 70% of all television households in the country), Oi Takkoi (which ran from 2002 to 2005), S' Agapo (which ran from 2001 to 2002), Vasiliki (which ran from 2005 to 2006), Vendetta (which ran from September 2005 to December 2006), 30 kai Kati (which ran from 2006 to 2007) and Mila Mou (which ran from September 2007 to January 2009).

ANT1 Cyprus aired the soap I Goitia Tis Amartias in 2002, which was soon canceled. Dikse Mou To Filo Sou followed from 2006 to 2009, along with Gia Tin Agapi Sou, which ran from 2008 to 2009 and itself was followed by Panselinos, which has aired since 2009.

The longest-running weekly show on Cyprus television is Istories Tou Horkou ("Villages Stories", which premiered on CyBC in March 1996 and ran until its cancellation in June 2006; it was revived in September 2010 but was cancelled again in March 2011 due to very low ratings), followed by Manolis Ke Katina ("Manolis and Katina", which ran from 1995 to 2004). The most controversial of these series was To Kafenio ("The Coffee Shop"), which premiered on CyBC on 1993 as a weekly series, before moving to MEGA Channel Cyprus six years later in 1999 as a weekdaily show and then moved to ANT1 Cyprus on 2000, which canceled the show one year later. There were plans to move the show back to CyBC as a weekly series in 2001, with the original cast, however, this plan was never realised. The most successful weekly shows in Cyprus currently are ANT1's Eleni I Porni ("Eleni, The Whore"), which premiered in October 2010 and CyBC's Stin Akri Tu Paradisou ("At The Heaven's Edge"), which premiered in 2007. The most successful weekdaily soap was Aigia Fuxia, which aired on ANT1 Cyprus from 2008 to 2010.

The only daily Finnish soap opera so far is Salatut elämät ( Secret Lives), which has achieved popularity in Finland since its 1999 debut on MTV3. It focuses on the lives of people along the imaginary Pihlajakatu street in Helsinki. The show has also spawned several Internet spin-off series and a film based on the show that was released in 2012.

Other soap-like shows in Finland are YLE shows Uusi päivä (which has aired since 2009) and Kotikatu (which ran from 1995 to 2012), however these programs do not adhere to a five-episode-a-week schedule.

In Latin America, for many years, primetime (as well as part of daytime) programming, for the most part, has been traditionally composed of telenovelas. However, throughout the years, there have been cases where a number of television programs tended to "mix" the concepts of television series and telenovela, such as, for example, a telenovela that lasted several seasons to end. With this "overlap", many people consider that these shows could be more accurately described as "soap operas". With this being said, the two most notable Latin American examples of TV programs that could fit on the definition of a "soap opera" are Chiquititas (in both Argentina and Brazil) and (only in Brazil).

Chiquititas was first broadcast in Argentina by Telefe in 1995 and soon became a national hit, especially among children. In regards to the audience, all eight seasons (the final season ended in 2006) of Chiquititas guaranteed the first place in the Argentine TV ratings for Telefe. Throughout the years, Chiquititas had a number of spin-offs not only in Argentina, but also in Brazil, Mexico and Portugal. In 1997, Silvio Santos, founder and owner of the Brazilian television network SBT, seeing the good ratings of Chiquititas in Argentina, decided to make a partnership with Telefe, and thus, SBT started to broadcast Chiquititas in Brazil, but in the format of " remake", with the use of the Portuguese language instead of Spanish, with the use of dubbing when singing the soundtrack songs (unlike the Argentine version, on which the actors themselves sung the songs), with a Brazilian cast and with slight modifications in regards to its plot (the Brazilian version was set in the city of São Paulo instead of Buenos Aires, although many scenes of the Brazilian adaptation were actually filmed at the same Telefe studios in Buenos Aires where the Argentine version was also recorded, due to the afore-mentioned partnership between Telefe and SBT). The Brazilian version of Chiquititas, which lasted five seasons and ended in 2001, was successful in the ratings as well, in a slightly smaller scale compared to the Argentine version, and despite the success of Malhação (see below), the soap opera was one of the most known TV programs of the late 1990s in Brazil, enough to put Chiquititas also in the imaginary of many Brazilian children (a proof of this is that the casting process for the third season of Chiquititas in 1999 reunited about 15,000 children in the city of São Paulo alone, a record number not seen even in any Brazilian telenovela). In 2013, SBT decided to make a second adaptation of Chiquititas, which lasted two seasons (the final season ended in 2015), but unlike the first version, which resembled more like its Argentine counterpart, the second version, produced only by SBT, is different not only because the soundtrack is entirely sung by the actors themselves (as well as on the Argentine version, on which the actors did not dub the songs, but unlike the first Brazilian adaptation), and is also more "modernized", with themes like social media and bullying being present. Despite the fact that the ratings of the 2013 version of Chiquititas were smaller, the soap opera was not considered a failure by the critics. SBT executives evaluated the ratings as being "satisfactory", and some fans consider the 2013 version to be a small "revival" of the 1997 version of Chiquititas.

has been transmitted by Rede Globo on almost every week since 1995 and has become the most successful Brazilian soap opera in the ratings. On each one of the 27 seasons shown as of 2021, the soap opera stayed in the first place on the ratings (like the Argentine version of Chiquititas). Moreover, Malhação also had a number of spin-offs being produced in Brazil. However, unlike Chiquititas, Malhação is more focused on teenagers, with more mature issues like teenage pregnancy, sexual relationships and the use of illicit drugs being discussed on its plot. Another interesting topic is that Malhação is considered by some fans as being the "entrance door" to many rookie actors who obtain the first opportunity of working on Rede Globo, because history has shown that a good acting in Malhação increases the possibility of being "promoted" to the primetime telenovelas (also broadcast by Rede Globo). In fact, estimates indicate that hundreds of actors participate in the casting process of Malhação each year, proving that many aspiring actors want to appear in this soap opera to further progress their careers.

With the advent of internet television and mobile phones, several soap operas have also been produced specifically for these platforms, including EastEnders: E20, a spin-off of the established EastEnders. For those produced only for the mobile phone, episodes may generally consist of about six or seven pictures and accompanying text.

On September 13, 2011, TG4 launched a new 10-part online series titled, (an Internet spin-off of ). The miniseries took on the theme of a mystery; the viewer had to read Rachel and Lorcán's blogs as well as watch video diaries detailing each character's thoughts to solve the mystery of missing teenage character Ciara.

In motion pictures, the 1982 comedy Tootsie has the lead character impersonating a woman in order to gain acting work on a long running television soap opera. Several scenes parody the production of soaps, their outrageous storylines and idiosyncratic stylistic elements.

The 1991 comedy stars Sally Field as an aging soap opera actress on the fictional series The Sun Also Sets who pines over her own neuroses and misfortunes, such as her live-in boyfriend who leaves her to go back to his wife, and the incidents of backstabbing and scheming behind the scenes, some of which are more interesting than the stories on the program.

Another 1991 comedy, , stars John Candy as a soap opera writer who, after a head injury, has a dream experience of being in his own creation. The dream experience is an increasingly outrageous exaggeration of soap opera plot elements.

On television, several soap opera parodies have been produced:

The Carol Burnett Show (1967-78) featured a recurring skit, "As the Stomach Turns", that spoofed the American soap opera As the World Turns.

The first season of the children's television series The Electric Company featured a recurring sketch, "Love of Chair", spoofing classic soap operas. The title was based on the long-running soap opera Love of Life, and its announcer Ken Roberts was also the announcer on Love of Life.

Two of the most famous U.S. parodies were the series Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (1976-77) and (1977-81), the latter of which was a weekly sitcom/soap opera parody.

The cult Australian prison soap opera (1979-86) included a spoof television soap that the inmates were occasionally seen watching called "Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow". In one episode, specially recorded audio can be heard in which two characters from the fictional soap opera play out a ludicrous script which clearly pokes fun at the heightened melodrama of daytime soap operas.

British soap opera (1982-2003) included an in-universe soap opera parody of itself called "Meadowcroft Park" which Brookside characters referenced and were occasionally seen watching. The soap was set on a newly built housing estate in Chester and real scenes, even a "Part two" caption, were produced for airing on the character's houses TV's. Notably, Meadowcroft was also the original working title of Brookside.

The recurring "Acorn Antiques" skit on the UK's Victoria Wood As Seen On TV (1985-87) was modeled on Crossroads and other British soap operas of the 1970s. In 1992, Wood included a new soap parody for the one-off programme Victoria Wood's All Day Breakfast called The Mall which was set in a shopping centre. Wood played Connie who was a send up of Polly Perkins character Trish Valentine in failed BBC soap which was still airing at the time.

Let The Blood Run Free (1990-94) was an Australian parody of medical drama series.

The 1990-91 ABC drama was a prime time series that poked fun at the genre. Episodes during the series' first season also included a fictional soap within the stories, titled Invitation to Love.

Shark Bay (1996) was an Australian parody of glamorous beachside soap operas. It featured many actors who had appeared in Australian soap operas Sons and Daughters, Prisoner, Home and Away and Neighbours.[citation needed ]

The 2000-2001 WB sitcom Grosse Pointe was a self-parody of creator Darren Star's behind-the-scenes experiences producing nighttime soaps, in particular Beverly Hills, 90210.

South African comedian Casper de Vries produced the soap opera parody Haak en Steek (which ran from 2003 to 2004), based on South African soaps like Egoli: Place of Gold.

The ABC dramedy Dirty Sexy Money (which ran from 2007 to 2009) was in a way a soap opera parody but, in actuality, was styled as more of a satire that operated in a humorous way similar to a parody. The series was critically acclaimed,[citation needed ] but only lasted for two seasons.

The now-cancelled ABC soap opera One Life to Live would often poke fun at the genre as well, even featuring a soap within the soap called Fraternity Row, which many of One Life to Live's characters had either worked on or watched. Months after ABC announced in April 2011 that it would cancel One Life to Live, the series featured a storyline in which Fraternity Row itself was cancelled, leading the character of Roxy Balsom (Ilene Kristen) to desperately try and save the series, to no avail. A special episode that aired on December 19, 2011, featured the cast of One Life to Live acting out an episode of Fraternity Row in a dream of Roxy's; the episode poked fun at both One Life to Live and the entire genre itself, featuring many soap opera stereotypes such as overacting, outrageous story lines, bad casting and incestuous relationships; it also parodied some storylines featured on the real-world soap. The second-to-last episode of One Life to Live showed characters watching the final episode of Fraternity Row and exposing the show's last big secret: the series' main heroine and protagonist, Lorraine King Vonvaldenburg Baxter Beumont, was really a man.

Second City TV featured The Days of the Week: "Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday. Friday. Saturday. Sunday. These are...The Days of the Week."

The ABC comedy-drama Desperate Housewives (which ran from 2004 to 2012) was a semi-satirical nighttime series that took many elements from the genre.

The Fox broadcast show Futurama has a recurring spoof of All My Children called All My Circuits

The Adult Swim animated series Tender Touches, which premiered in 2017, is a parody of soap operas.

Ang, Ien. Watching Dallas: Soap Opera and the Melodramatic Imagination, Methuen, 1985. ISBN 978-0-416-41630-5

Bowles, Kate. Soap opera: 'No end of story, ever' in The Australian TV Book, (Eds. Graeme Turner and Stuart Cunningham), Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, NSW, 2000. ISBN 1-86508-014-4, Google Books link

Geraghty, Christine. The Aesthetic Experience in Women and Soap Opera: A Study of Prime Time Soaps, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1991. ISBN 0-7456-0489-7

Mercado, Andrew. Super Aussie Soaps, Pluto Press Australia, 2004. ISBN 1-86403-191-3

Timeline of daytime soaps

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A soap opera or soap for short is a radio or television serial dealing especially with domestic situations and frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored by soap manufacturers. BBC Radio's The Archers , first broadcast in 1950, is the world's longest-running radio soap opera.

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How EastEnders was looked upon by working class vs. upper class. How the soap blossomed because of its insight into ordinary people living in ordinary places.

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The world's longest running soap, Radio 4's The Archers, began broadcasting in 1950. Like Front Line Family, initially it had more than one purpose. Set in the fictitious village of Ambridge, it was 'a tale of everyday country folk' that was to be both a gripping drama 'a farming Dick Barton' (a popular crime serial at the time) and an accurate portrayal of post-war country life. It was also used to promote modern farming methods and took advice from the then Ministry of Agriculture. For a time it was '60 percent entertainment, 30 percent information and 10 percent education'.

It also worked spectacularly as a programme and quickly became a hit with both urban and rural listeners, attracting an audience of over 9 million by 1953. Such was its power that famously, the death of Grace Archer in a fire on September 22 1955 saw the BBC inundated with calls from grief-stricken listeners and the newspapers the next day full of nothing else, completely overshadowing the launch of commercial television. Down the years the programme has changed with the nation, and storylines that would have been unthinkable in the less permissive 1950s are now commonplace, but the realities of country living. from foot and mouth to the economic pressures on dairy farming, are still portrayed with a careful eye to detail and accuracy.

TV Soap

BBC television's first foray into soap opera was a children's programme The Appleyards, which went out once every two weeks from 1952 to 1957. At first it was broadcast live. It featured Mum, Dad and their four children, living somewhere in the Home Counties. Unlike later soaps, which continue in real time, as the younger Appleyard child actors grew, they were replaced, so in this little corner of suburban England time appeared to stand still.

The Grove Family, which ran from 1954 to 1957, was the first television soap for adults. It was set in the north London suburb of Hendon and featured three generations of a successful builder's family who took their name from the BBC's Lime Grove studios. First and foremost entertainment, it nevertheless contained public service elements as well as reflecting the post-war growth in prosperity.

Commercial competition

The 1960s saw commercial television establishing such a dominance in soaps with shows such as Coronation Street (1960) and Crossroads (1964-88, 2001-2003), that until the launch of EastEnders in 1985, many considered that the BBC was not committed to this type of popular drama. This was not for the want of trying though. After the failure of the short-lived and largely forgotten attempt at a replacement for The Groves called Starr and Company, BBC television returned to the fray in 1962 with a more successful and memorable drama, Compact. Seen as a rival to Coronation Street, but scheduled to avoid clashing with it, Compact had a decidedly more upmarket setting than its more established rival amid the glamorous world of fashion publishing. Predictably, it was panned by critics but liked by audiences and due to viewer demand an omnibus edition was introduced in 1964. The programme did not win a place in the heart of the Corporation, however, and was discontinued in 1965. Later the same year, the BBC tried again with The Newcomers, which ran until late 1969 and told the story of the Coopers, a London family who moved to the fictional town of Angleton against the real background of a shift in population from London to smaller satellite towns in the 1950s and 1960s.

BBC innovation

As The Dales finally came to an end in the spring of 1969, Radio 2 launched its own soap, Waggoners Walk. This was a very different animal from the comfortable Dales or Archers and featured storylines about illegitimacy, homosexuality, abortion and a host of other hot social topics. It overtook The Archers in popularity and by the early seventies was attracting audiences of over 4 million. This did not save it from being axed in the midst of an economy drive in1980, however.

The honour of being the longest-running television soap on the BBC goes to the Welsh language drama, Pobol y Cwym (People of the Valley) which been airing since 1974, at first on BBC Wales and then on the Welsh language channel SC4 from 1982 onwards. Like its cockney younger sibling, a great deal of the action takes place in the local pub, the Deri Arms.

EastEnders

Which brings us to the Queen Vic. By the early 1980s, it had become imperative that the BBC re-connect with the popular audience and EastEnders was a central part of that effort. Arguably for the first time, BBC television threw itself wholeheartedly into the production of a soap opera, investing large sums of money, building a permanent set and ensuring that when EastEnders hit the screens in February 1985 it connected with the public, attracting up to 30 million viewers for some episodes within its first year. A quarter of a century later, it continues to win large audiences. At its best, it combines human interest and melodrama but always rooted in the lives of real people.

As an interesting coda, the soap skills evolved on British TV and radio are now being used in the developing world, in order to create engaging soaps which also have important messages around health and civic society. BBC script advisers from The Archers, for example, worked on an Albanian soap commissioned by the World Service, which was listened to - at its peak - by 65% of the adult population. Other soaps have been developed for Russia, Afghanistan, Nepal, Nigeria, India, Vietnam, Romania and Burma.

And so the BBC soap format continues to evolve, occupying its place in both national and global schedules.
Anthony McNicholas is a media historian and a senior lecturer in the Communication and Media Research Institute at the University of Westminster.

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soaps on the bbc: from the front line to the queen vic

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The world's longest running soap, Radio 4's The Archers, began broadcasting in 1950. Like Front Line Family, initially it had more than one purpose. Set in the fictitious village of Ambridge, it was 'a tale of everyday country folk' that was to be both a gripping drama 'a farming Dick Barton' (a popular crime serial at the time) and an accurate portrayal of post-war country life.

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The development of the soap and its sense of community: "Hurt one of us and you hurt us all"

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EastEnders was launched at a critical moment in the BBC's history and was intended to demonstrate the BBC's ability to produce popular programming. It started airing on the night after a major identity change for the channel, with the show representing the "new face" of the BBC. Some critics at first derided the new offering, as it was clear that the BBC wished to bridge the gap between the network and its competitor, ITV.

The BBC brass was vindicated, however, when EastEnders became wildly popular and displaced Coronation Street from the top of the ratings for the rest of the 1980s and much of the 1990s and 2000s.

A previous UK soap set in an East End market was ATV's Market in Honey Lane between 1967 and 1969. However this show, which graduated from one showing a week to two in three separate series (the latter series being shown in different time slots across the ITV Network) was very different in style and approach to EastEnders. The British Film Institute describe Market In Honey Lane thus:

It was not an earth-shaking programme, and certainly not pioneering in any revolutionary ideas in technique and production, but simply proposed itself to the casual viewer as a mildly pleasant affair.[1]

EastEnders, while also featuring an East End street market, would be very different in its approach and impact.In March 1983, just under two years before EastEnders hit the screen, the show was just a vague idea in the mind of a handful of BBC executives, who decided that what BBC1 needed was a popular bi-weekly drama series that would attract the kind of mass audiences ITV was getting with Coronation Street.

Julia Smith and Tony Holland, the creators of EastEnders.
The first people to whom David Reid, then head of series and serials, turned were Julia Smith and Tony Holland, a well established producer/script editor team who had first worked together on Z-Cars. The outline that Reid presented was vague: two episodes a week, 52 weeks a year. After the concept was put to them on 14 March 1983, Smith and Holland then went about putting their ideas down on paper; they decided it would be set in the East End of London.[2]

There was anxiety at first that the viewing public would not accept a new soap set in the south of England, though research commissioned by lead figures in the BBC had revealed southerners would accept a northern soap, northerners would accept a southern soap and those from the Midlands, as Julia Smith herself pointed out, did not mind where it was set as long as it was somewhere else. This was the beginning of a close and continuing association between EastEnders and audience research, which, though commonplace today, was something of a revolution in practice.[2]

The show's creators were both Londoners, but when they researched Victorian squares, they found massive changes in areas they thought they knew well. However, delving further into the East End of London, they found exactly what they had been searching for: a real East End spirit-an inward looking quality, a distrust of strangers and authority figures, a sense of territory and community that the creators summed up as "Hurt one of us and you hurt us all".[2] These themes that were found for the setting can still be found in a present-day episode of EastEnders.

When developing EastEnders, both Smith and Holland looked at influential models like Coronation Street, but they found that it offered a rather outdated and nostalgic view of working-class life. Only after EastEnders began, and featured the characters of Tony and Kelvin Carpenter, did Coronation Street start to feature black people, for example.[3]

They came to the conclusion that Coronation Street had grown old with its audience, and that EastEnders would have to attract a younger, more socially extensive audience, ensuring that it had the longevity to retain it for many years thereafter.[2]

They also looked at Brookside but found there was a lack of central meeting points for the characters, making it difficult for the writers to intertwine different storylines.

So EastEnders was set in Albert Square. The first stage of the exterior set was built in 1984,[4] and had to be made to look as if it had been standing for years. This was done by a number of means, including chipping at the buildings with pickaxes. The EastEnders lot was designed by Keith Harris, who was a senior designer within the production team together with Supervising art directors Peter Findley and Gina Parr.[2] Then in 1986, he added an extension to the set, building the fourth side of Albert Square, and in 1987, Turpin Road was added, which included buildings such as The Dagmar. In 1993, George Street was added, and soon after Walford East tube station was built. The set was constructed by the BBC in house construction department under construction manager Mike Hagan. The initial build took 6 months to complete.

The target launch date was originally January 1985.[4] Smith and Holland had just eleven months in which to write, cast and shoot the whole thing. However, in February 1984, they did not even have a title or a place to film. Both Smith and Holland were unhappy about the January 1985 launch date, favouring November or even September 1984 when seasonal audiences would be higher, but the BBC stayed firm, and Smith and Holland had to concede that, with the massive task of getting the Elstree Studios operational, January was the most realistic date. However, this was later to be changed to February.

The project had a number of working titles-Square Dance, Round the Square, Round the Houses, London Pride, East 8.[5] It was the latter that stuck (E8 is the postcode for Hackney) in the early months of creative process. However, the show was renamed after many casting agents mistakenly thought the show was to be called Estate, and the fictional postcode E20 was created for Walford, instead of using E8. Julia Smith came up with the name Eastenders after she and Holland had spent months telephoning theatrical agents and asking "Do you have any real East Enders on your books?". However, Smith thought "Eastenders" "looked ugly written down" and was "hard to say", so decided to capitalise the second 'e'.[2]

Initial character creation and casting[edit]

A photo of all characters and animals who first appeared in EastEnders in 1985
After they decided on the filming location (BBC Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire), Smith and Holland set about creating the twenty-three characters needed, in just fourteen days. They took a holiday in Playa de los Pocillos, Lanzarote, and started to create the characters. Tony Holland created the Beale and Fowler family, drawing on his own background. His mother, Ethel Holland, was one of four sisters raised in Walthamstow. Her eldest sister, Lou, had married a man named Albert Beale and had two children, named Peter and Pauline. These family members were the basis for Lou and Pete Beale and Pauline Fowler. Holland also created Pauline's unemployed husband Arthur, their children Mark and Michelle, Pete's wife Kathy and their son Ian. Julia Smith used her personal memories of East End residents she had met when researching Victorian squares. Ethel Skinner was based on an old woman she had met in a pub, with ill-fitting false teeth, and a "face to rival a neon sign", holding a Yorkshire Terrier in one hand and a pint of Guinness in the other.[4] Other characters created included Jewish doctor Harold Legg, the Anglo-Cypriot Osman family, Ali, Sue and baby Hassan, black father and son, Tony and Kelvin Carpenter, single mother Mary Smith and Bangladeshi couple Saeed and Naima Jeffery. Jack, Pearl and Tracey Watts were created to bring "flash, trash, and melodrama" to the Square (they were later renamed Den, Angie and Sharon). The characters of Andy O'Brien and Debbie Wilkins were created to show a modern couple with outwardly mobile pretensions, and Lofty Holloway to show an outsider; someone who did not fit in with other residents. It was decided that he would be an ex-soldier, as Tony Holland's personal experiences of ex-soldiers were that they had trouble fitting into society after being in the army. When they compared the characters they had created, Smith and Holland realised they had created a cross-section of East End residents. The Beale and Fowler family represented the old families of the East End, who had always been there. The Osmans, Jefferys and Carpenters represented the more modern diverse ethnic community of the East End. Debbie, Andy and Mary represented more modern day individuals.[2]

Once they had decided on their twenty-three characters, they returned to London for a meeting with the BBC. Everyone was in agreement, EastEnders was to be tough, violent on occasion, funny and sharp-set in Thatcher's Britain-and it would start with a bang (namely the death of Reg Cox). They decided that none of their existing characters were wicked enough to have killed Reg, so a twenty-fourth character, Nick Cotton was added to the line-up. He was a racist thug, who often tried to lead other young characters astray.

When all the characters had been created, Smith and Holland set about casting the actors for the show. The first actor to be cast was Bill Treacher, a Z-Cars veteran who had been considered for the role of Arthur from the conception of the show. Anna Wing was then cast as Lou Beale, due to her upbringing in Hackney, and having the face and voice that Tony Holland had imagined. Peter Dean was cast as Pete Beale after doing a stand-up cockney routine in his rehearsal. Gillian Taylforth was originally considered to play Sue Osman, but the creators of the show envisioned Sue as a brunette, and Taylforth was blonde. She was considered too young and pretty to play Kathy Beale, until Holland and Smith heard her voice, which was rough and gritty like a market trader's. Susan Tully, already famous for starring in Grange Hill, was cast as Michelle Fowler due to her enthusiasm about the teenage pregnancy storyline she would be taking part in. Her enthusiasm for the show lived on, and since leaving as an actor in 1995 she has directed some episodes.[6] Matthew Robinson, the show's lead director, had Wendy Richard in mind to play Pauline Fowler. However, she was famous for playing the glamorous Miss Shirley Brahms in Are You Being Served?, and it was expected that she would be too glamorous for the role of a forty-something downtrodden housewife. When Richard met Matthew Robinson, she told him she was bored of glamour and wanted to play a character her own age.

Paul J. Medford was recommended by four separate agencies, and was subsequently cast as Kelvin Carpenter. Likewise, 16-year-old Adam Woodyatt was recommended by his previous agency, and cast as Ian Beale. Oscar James was then cast as Tony Carpenter. He was pleased with the portrayal of a black family in a soap opera, and Smith and Holland liked the idea of James being physically larger than Medford. Leonard Fenton and Sandy Ratcliff were recommended by writer Bill Lyons, and were cast as Dr. Legg and Sue Osman, respectively. Tom Watt was recommended for the role of Lofty Holloway, and cast because Holland and Smith liked his gauche, childlike appearance. Ross Davidson, a sporty working-class Scot was eventually given the role of Andy O'Brien, despite Holland and Smith feeling that he came across as a male chauvinist. Letitia Dean was cast as Sharon Watts due to her dirty laugh. Linda Davidson was cast as Mary Smith as she was born and raised in northern England, and her background and accent would fit in with the character's. Smith and Holland had both worked with the actress Shirley Cheriton on their previous television series about nurses, entitled Angels. Cheriton had proved an extremely popular addition to the cast of Angels and had secured herself a large number of fans. Both Holland and Smith perceived Cheriton to be a "rung or two up from her working-class origins", but she was not posh either, which was perfect for the part of Debbie Wilkins. They initially worried that Cheriton would have reservations about playing a person who was not immediately liked by everyone, but Cheriton liked the role so she was instantly hired. Holland and Smith were at war as to who to cast in the role of Ali Osman; Holland wanted Turkish Haluk Bilginer to play the role, as he had the physical appearance and he believed Sandy Ratcliff would "make mincemeat" out of the other actor, Nejdet Salih. Smith disagreed; Salih was an actual Turkish Cypriot, and lived in the East End with his large family. To resolve the dispute, both actors were given a reading session with Sandy Ratcliff. Salih secured the role after making a sexist remark about her bad time-keeping. Bilginer later went on to play Ali Osman's brother Mehmet. Shreela Ghosh was a late casting. She was cast as she liked what the creators were doing with an Asian couple, and was right for the part. John Altman was cast as Nick Cotton.

Leslie Grantham was considered too sexy when he auditioned for Pete Beale, and was cast as Den Watts instead. Julia Smith stood by this decision when she found out that as a young soldier in Germany, he had shot and killed a German taxi driver during an attempted robbery and had served time in prison. Actress Jean Fennell was cast as Angie Watts, but as rehearsals began, it became clear she was not right for the role that Holland had conceived. Four days before filming began, Julia Smith had to tell Fennell that she had been axed from the show, and cast Anita Dobson instead. Dobson read the part well with Grantham, and "spat like a tigress and purred like a kitten".[2]

Final preparations[edit]
Through the next few months, the set was growing rapidly at Elstree, and a composer and designer had been commissioned to create the title sequence. Simon May (music)[7] and Alan Jeapes (visuals) created it, and it remains one of the most recognisable title clips in television. The visual images were taken from an aircraft flying over the East End of London at 1000 feet. Approximately 800 photographs were taken, and pieced together to create one big image. The credits were later updated when the Millennium Dome was built.[8]

The launch was delayed until February 1985[4] due to a delay in the chat show Wogan, that was to be a part of the major revamp in BBC1's schedules. Julia Smith was uneasy about the late start as EastEnders no longer had the winter months to build up a loyal following before the summer ratings lull. The press were invited to see Elstree and meet the cast and see the lot-and stories immediately started circulating about the show, about a rivalry with ITV (who were launching their own market-based soap, Albion Market) and about the private lives of the cast. Anticipation and rumour grew in equal measure until the first transmission at 7 p.m. on 19 February 1985. Both Holland and Smith could not watch; they both instead returned to the place where it all began, Albertine's Wine Bar on Wood Lane. The next day, viewing figures were confirmed at 17 million. The reviews were largely favourable, although after three weeks on air, BBC1's early evening share had returned to the pre-EastEnders figure of 7 million, though EastEnders then climbed to highs of up to 23 million later on in the year. Following the launch, both group discussions and telephone surveys were conducted to test audience reaction to early episodes. Detailed reactions were taken after six months and since then regular monitoring has been conducted.

1980s broadcast history[edit]
Press coverage of EastEnders, which was already intense, went into overdrive once the show was broadcast. With public interest so high, the media began investigating the private lives of the show's popular stars. Within days, the scandalous headline the producers had all dreaded appeared-"EASTENDERS STAR IS A KILLER". This referred to Leslie Grantham, and his prison sentence for the murder of a taxi driver in an attempted robbery nearly 20 years earlier. This shocking tell-all style set the tone for relations between Albert Square and the press for the next 20 years.

The show's first episode attracted some 17 million viewers, and it continued to attract high viewing figures from then on.[9]

By Christmas 1985, the tabloids couldn't get enough of the show. 'Exclusives' about EastEnders storylines and the actors on the show became a staple of tabloid buyers daily reading.

From its early days, EastEnders featured "gritty" storylines involving drugs and crime, representing the issues faced by working-class Britain.[10] High-profile early storylines included the cot death of 14-month-old Hassan Osman, Nick Cotton's homophobia, racism and murder of Reg Cox,[11] Arthur Fowler's unemployment reflecting the mass unemployment of that era, the rape of Kathy Beale in 1988 by James Willmott-Brown[11] and Michelle Fowler's teenage pregnancy. The show also dealt with prostitution, mixed-race relationships, shoplifting, sexism, divorce, domestic violence and mugging.

Mary Whitehouse argued at the time that EastEnders represented a violation of "family viewing time" and that it undermined the watershed policy. She regarded EastEnders as a fundamental assault on the family and morality itself. She made reference to representation of family life and emphasis on psychological and emotional violence within the show. She was also critical of language such as "bleeding", "bloody hell", "bastard" and "for Christ's sake". However, Whitehouse also praised the programme, describing Michelle Fowler's decision not to have an abortion as a "very positive storyline". She also felt that EastEnders had been cleaned up as a result of her protests, though during the 1990s commented that EastEnders had returned to its old ways. Her criticisms were widely reported in the tabloid press as ammunition in its existing hostility towards the BBC. The stars of Coronation Street in particular aligned themselves with Mary Whitehouse, gaining headlines such as "STREETS AHEAD! RIVALS LASH SEEDY EASTENDERS" and "CLEAN UP SOAP! Street Star Bill Lashes 'Steamy' EastEnders". Despite the criticism, EastEnders became wildly popular with audiences, often displacing Coronation Street from the top of the ratings for the rest of the 1980s.

Writer Colin Brake has suggested that 1989 was a year of big change for EastEnders, both behind the cameras and in front of them. Original production designer, Keith Harris, left the show, and co-creators, Tony Holland and Julia Smith, both decided that the time had come to move on too; their final contribution coinciding with the exit of one of EastEnders most successful characters, Den Watts (Leslie Grantham).[12] Producer, Mike Gibbon, was given the task of running the show and he enlisted the most experienced writers to take over the storylining of the programme, including Charlie Humphreys, Jane Hollowood and Tony McHale.[12]

According to Brake, the departure of two of the soap's most popular characters, Den and Angie Watts (Anita Dobson), had left a void in the programme, which needed to be filled.[12] In addition several other long-running characters left the show that year including two original cast members, Sue and Ali Osman (Sandy Ratcliff and Nejdet Salih) and their family; Donna Ludlow (Matilda Ziegler); Carmel Jackson (Judith Jacob) and Colin Russell (Michael Cashman). Brake has indicated that the production team decided that 1989 was to be a year of change in Walford, commenting, "it was almost as if Walford itself was making a fresh start".[12]

At the time the programme had come under criticism in the British media for being too depressing, and according to Brake, the programme makers were determined to change this.[12] In 1989 there was a deliberate attempt to increase the lighter, more comic aspects of life in Albert Square. This led to the introduction of some characters who were deliberately conceived as comic or light-hearted.[12] Such characters included Julie Cooper - a brassy maneater; Marge Green-a batty older lady played by veteran comedy actress, Pat Coombs; Trevor Short (Phil McDermott), the "village idiot", and his friend, northern heartbreaker Paul Priestly (Mark Thrippleton); wheeler-dealer Vince Johnson (Hepburn Graham) and Laurie Bates (Gary Powell), who became Pete Beale's (Peter Dean) sparring partner.[12]

Brake suggests that humour was an important element in EastEnders' storylines during 1989, with a greater amount of slapstick and light comedy than ever before. He has classed 1989's changes as a brave experiment, and has suggested that while some found this period of EastEnders entertaining, many other viewers felt that the comedy stretched the programme's credibility somewhat.[12] Although the programme still covered many issues in 1989, such as domestic violence, drugs, rape and racism, Brake reflected that the new emphasis on a more balanced mix between "light and heavy storylines" gave the illusion that the show had lost a "certain edge".[12]

By the end of 1989 EastEnders had acquired a new executive producer, Michael Ferguson, who had previously been a successful producer on ITV's The Bill. Brake has suggested that Ferguson was responsible for bringing in a new sense of vitality, and creating a programme that was more in touch with the real world than it had been over the last year.[12]

Changes in the 1990s[edit]
A new era began in 1990 with the introduction of the Mitchell brothers, Phil (Steve McFadden) and Grant (Ross Kemp), successful characters who would go on to dominate the soap thereafter. As the new production machine cleared the way for new characters and a new direction, all of the characters introduced under Mike Gibbon were axed from the show at the start of the year.[12]

Other characters introduced under Michael Ferguson included the Tavernier family, pub landlord Eddie Royle, as well as the afore mentioned Mitchell brothers and their sister Sam.[13] At EastEnders Ferguson was responsible for storylines such as the return of runaway Diane Butcher, giving Mark Fowler HIV, Mo Butcher's Alzheimer's, Nick Cotton's attempt to poison his mother Dot Cotton, and the murder of Eddie Royle. After a successful revamp of the soap, Ferguson decided to leave EastEnders in July 1991.[12]

Michael Furguson was succeeded by both Leonard Lewis and Helen Greaves who initially shared the role as Executive Producer for EastEnders.[12] Lewis and Greaves formulated a new regime for EastEnders, giving the writers of the serial more authority in storyline progression, with the script department providing "guidance rather than prescriptive episode storylines".[12] By the end of 1992 Helen Greaves left the serial and Lewis became executive and series producer.[14] Among the notable storylines that aired under Lewis' tenure were, Arthur Fowler's affair with Christine Hewitt, Pat Butcher's drunk-driving accident, the death of Gill Fowler, Sharon Mitchell's affair with her brother-in-law Phil Mitchell, and the reintroduction of Cindy Beale. Other characters introduced included, Mandy Salter, Richard Cole, Sanjay Kapoor, Christine Hewitt, Nigel Bates, Natalie Price and the Jackson family, while axings included Pete Beale, and some of Tavernier family.[12] Lewis decided to leave EastEnders in 1994 after the BBC controllers demanded an extra episode a week, taking its weekly airtime from 1hr (two episodes), to 1.5hrs (3 episodes).[15] Lewis felt that producing an hour of "reasonable quality drama" a week was the maximum that any broadcasting system could generate without loss of integrity.[15] Having set up the transition to the new schedule, the first trio of episodes-dubbed The Vic siege-marked Lewis' departure from the programme.[12]

Barbara Emile then became the Executive Producer of EastEnders.[16][17] Storylines that aired under her tenure included Sharongate, Nigel and Debbie Bates' wedding (an on-screen celebration that aired to mark the show's 1000th episode), and Ricky Butcher's love triangle with best friends Bianca Jackson and Natalie Price. Characters introduced included Tiffany Raymond, Roy and Barry Evans. Emile remained with EastEnders until early 1995 and was succeeded by Corinne Hollingworth.

At EastEnders Hollingworth was responsible for storylines such as Michelle Fowler falling pregnant to her nemesis Grant Mitchell; and Ricky Butcher's love triangle with his wife Sam and girlfriend Bianca Jackson. Hollingworth's contributions to the soap were awarded in 1997 when EastEnders won the BAFTA for "Best Drama Series." Hollingworth shared the award with the next Executive Producer, Jane Harris.[18]

Harris was responsible for introducing the di Marco family, the Flahertys, Irene Hills, Lorna Cartwright and bringing back Frank Butcher and Dot Cotton as full-time characters. Axings included characters such as Ted Hills, Frankie Pierre and Felix Kawalski. Storylines that aired under her tenure included Phil Mitchell's alcoholism, Ricky Butcher and Bianca Jackson's first wedding, the critically panned Ireland episodes, and Cindy Beale's attempted assassination of Ian Beale, which brought in an audience of 23m in 1996, roughly 4m more than rival Coronation Street.[19][20]

In 1998 Matthew Robinson was appointed as the Executive Producer of EastEnders. During his reign EastEnders won the BAFTA for "Best Soap" in consecutive years 1999 & 2000 and many other awards. Robinson also earned tabloid soubriquet Axeman of Albert Square after sacking a large number of characters in one hit including; Sanjay Kapoor, Gita Kapoor, Neelam Kapoor, Michael Rose, Susan Rose, Bruno di Marco, Luisa di Marco, Chris Clarke, Ruth Fowler and George Palmer. He later went on to axe others characters including Tony Hills, Simon Raymond and Huw Edwards. In their place Robinson introduced new long-running characters including Melanie Healy, Jamie Mitchell, Lisa Shaw, Steve Owen and Billy Mitchell.

2000s[edit]
John Yorke then became the Executive Producer of EastEnders in 2000. During his time, York was given the task of introducing the soap's fourth weekly episode and managed a win over long running rival Coronation Street in a rare head-to-head showdown. He axed the majority of the Di Marco family and helped introduce popular characters such as the Slater family. As what Mal Young described as "two of EastEnders most successful years", Yorke was responsible for big ratings winners such as "Who Shot Phil?", Ethel Skinner's death, Jim Branning and Dot Cotton's marriage, abusive Trevor Morgan, and Kat Slater's revelation to her daughter Zoe that she was her mother. Yorke was also responsible for the recasting of Sam Mitchell in January 2002.

The Queen and Prince Philip visited the set in 2001 and were shown around by actresses Wendy Richard and Barbara Windsor.[21]

In 2002, Louise Berridge succeeded John York as the Executive Producer. During her time at EastEnders, Berridge introduced characters such as Alfie Moon, Dennis Rickman, Chrissie Watts, Jane Beale, Stacey Slater and the critically panned Indian Ferreira family. The Ferreira family also received criticism from the Asian community, who branded their storylines unbelievable and poorly researched, referencing the family's apparent mix of Muslim, Christian and Hindu characters. Also in 2002 and 2003 she wrote out top characters like Mark Fowler played by Todd Carty who had been in the show for over a decade, Lisa Fowler played by Lucy Benjamin who was one of the shows top characters at the time and also the Evans family which included Barry, Natalie & Roy.[22]

Berridge was responsible for some ratings success stories, such as the Alfie/Kat love storyline, "Janine kills Barry", Trevor Morgan and Jamie Mitchell's death storylines and the return of one of the greatest soap icons, "Dirty" Den Watts who had been presumed dead for fourteen years. His return in late 2003 was watched by over 16 million viewers, putting EastEnders back at number one in the rating war with the ITV's rival soap Coronation Street.[23] However, other storylines, such as a storyline about a kidney transplant involving the Ferreiras, were not well received,[22] and although Den Watts' return proved to be a ratings success, the British press branded the plot unrealistic and felt that it questioned the show's credibility.[24] A severe press backlash followed after Den's actor, Leslie Grantham, was outed in an internet sex scandal, which coincided with a swift decline in viewer ratings.[22][25] The scandal led to Grantham's departure from the soap, however the occasion was used to mark the 20th anniversary of EastEnders, with an episode showing Den's murder at the Queen Vic pub.

On 21 September 2004 Berridge quit as executive producer of EastEnders following continued criticism of the show. The following day the programme received its lowest ever ratings (6.2 million) when ITV scheduled an hour long episode of its rival soap, Emmerdale, against it. Emmerdale was watched by 8.1 million people.[26] Kathleen Hutchison was swiftly appointed as the Executive Producer of EastEnders, and was tasked with quickly turning the fortunes of the soap. During her time at the soap Hutchison axed multiple characters, and reportedly ordered the rewriting of numerous scripts. Newspapers reported on employee dissatisfaction with Hutchison's tenure at EastEnders.[27] New characters introduced by Hutchison included Jake Moon, Danny Moon, Johnny Allen and Ruby Allen. In January 2005, Hutchison left the soap and John York (who by this time, was the BBC Controller of Continuing Drama Series) took total control of the show himself and became acting Executive Producer for a short period, before appointing Kate Harwood to the role.[28]

Harwood stayed at EastEnders for 20 months before being promoted by the BBC. During her time at the soap Harwood introduced the characters of Dawn Swann, Honey Edwards, Deano Wicks, Carly Wicks, Kevin Wicks, Shirley Carter, Chelsea Fox, Sean Slater, Denise Fox, Libby Fox, Bradley Branning, Max Branning, Tanya Branning, Lauren Branning, and Jay Brown. These characters replaced the likes of Chrissie Watts, Dennis Rickman, Sharon Rickman, Little Mo Mitchell and most notably, original character Pauline Fowler. Wendy Richard, who played Pauline commented that her decision to leave EastEnders had been taken after the storyline involving Pauline's marriage to Joe Macer. Richard felt that this storyline, along with Pauline's development into a miserable manipulator had devalued the original creation of the character.[29]

On Friday 11 November 2005, EastEnders was the first British drama to feature a two-minute silence.[30] This episode later went on to win the British Soap Award for 'Best Single Episode'.[31]

In October 2006, Diederick Santer took over as Executive Producer of EastEnders. He introduced several characters to the show, including ethnic minority and homosexual characters to make the show 'feel more 21st Century'. Characters he introduced included Zainab Masood, Masood Ahmed, Christian Clarke, Whitney Dean, Tiffany Dean, Ronnie Mitchell, Roxy Mitchell, Archie Mitchell, Jack Branning, Heather Trott, Lucas Johnson, Ryan Malloy, Syed Masood and Amira Shah. Santer has also reintroduced past and popular characters to the programme including Bianca Jackson,[32] Ricky Butcher,[33] Janine Butcher,[34] Sam Mitchell,[35] Liam Butcher, Owen Turner, Liz Turner,[36] Carol Jackson and Billie Jackson.[37] Robbie Jackson and Sonia Fowler returned for a week of episodes to mark EastEnders 25th anniversary, while Santer also reinstated Diane Butcher for a week of episodes in 2008, and brought back the characters of Clare Bates and Steven Beale for a period of a few months.

On 2 March 2007, BBC signed a deal with Google to put videos on YouTube. A behind the scenes video of EastEnders, hosted by Matt Di Angelo, formerly Deano Wicks on the show, was put on the site the same day,[38] and was followed by another on 6 March 2007.[39] In April 2007, EastEnders became available to view on mobile phones, via 3G technology, for 3, Vodafone and Orange customers.[40] On 21 April 2007, the BBC launched a new advertising campaign using the slogan "There's more to EastEnders".[41] The first television advert showed Dot Branning with a refugee baby, Tomas, whom she took in under the pretence of being her grandson.[42] The second and third featured Stacey Slater and Dawn Swann, respectively.[43][44] There have also been adverts in magazines and on radio.

In 2009, producers introduced a limit on the number of speaking parts in each episode due to budget cuts, with an average of 16 characters per episode. The decision was criticised by Martin McGrath of Equity, who said "Trying to produce quality TV on the cheap is doomed to fail." The BBC responded by saying they had been working that way for some time and it had not affected the quality of the show.[45]

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EastEnders was launched at a critical moment in the BBC's history and was intended to demonstrate the BBC's ability to produce popular programming. It started airing on the night after a major identity change for the channel, with the show representing the "new face" of the BBC.

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Fig. 5) First ever episode aired in 1985

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Fig. 5) First ever episode aired in 1985

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Eastenders attracted 17 million viewers when it first aired.

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Episode 1, 19/02/1985, EastEnders - BBC One

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As EastEnders celebrates its 30th anniversary, relive the first episode.

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An article outlining the hard-hitting issues explored in EastEnders and how it partnered with NSPCC for its child abuse storyline.

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EastEnders: no stranger to controversial storylines

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Should EastEnders be dealing with child sex abuse when it is broadcast before the 9pm watershed?

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Fig. 9) Lenny Henry's plans to increase ethnic minorities

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Fig. 9) Lenny Henry's plans to increase ethnic minorities

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An interview with actor Lenny Henry who plans to increase ethnic minorities at the BBC.

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Dudley comic and actor Lenny Henry will give evidence to MPs today about his proposals to increase the numbers of people from ethnic minorities working at the BBC.

Members of the Culture, Media and Sport committee will also hear evidence from current and former BBC executives and the leadership of unions including Equity as part of their inquiry into the corporation's future.

Henry, whose shot to fame when he won the talent show New Faces in 1975, has criticised the TV and film industry for not providing a "fair and honest reflection of our society" and recently signed up to a committee advising the corporation on its representation of ethnic minorities.

The session comes the day after the acting chairman of the BBC Trust - its governing body - said it should do more to "provide an authentic portrayal" of modern Britain

Diane Coyle, who is in the running to replace Lord Patten as head of the trust, admitted its flagship soap EastEnders is "almost twice" as white as the real East London.

Director-General Tony Hall announced last week that the BBC would set up a new £2.1 million "diversity creative talent fund" to help "fast-track" shows by ethnic minority talent onto the screen and create a series of development programmes aimed at encouraging future commissioners and executives from ethnic minority backgrounds.

He also said he wanted to see ethnic minorities account for 15 per cent of on-air talent in the next three years.

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Lenny Henry to face MPs over plans to increase ethnic minorities at BBC

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Dudley comic and actor Lenny Henry will give evidence to MPs today about his proposals to increase the numbers of people from ethnic minorities working at the BBC. Members of the Culture, Media and Sport committee will also hear evidence from current and former BBC executives and the leadership of unions including Equity as part of their inquiry into the corporation's future.

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Submission to OfCom's third review of public service broadcasting.

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Fig. 6) Themes, characters, storylines...

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Fig. 6) Themes, characters, storylines...

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A brief look at the show's launch, when it began and how it faired with the public. Includes an overview of the show's characters, controversial themes and storylines.

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The BBC's most successful soap - a serious rival to Coronation Street

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Fig. 8) Dailymail Interview with Diane Coyle

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Fig. 8) Dailymail Interview with Diane Coyle

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EastEnders is "twice as white" as the real East End of London - she calls for "authentic portrayal of modern Britain".

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Diane Coyle said flagship soap is 'almost twice' as white as real East London

BBC 'compares population of Walthamstow in East London with Walford'

Comes after Lenny Henry and director-general Tony Hall announced a series of targets for staff from ethnic minority backgrounds last week

EastEnders is 'twice as white' as the real East End according to the head of the BBC Trust, who has called for the corporation to do more to 'provide an authentic portrayal' of modern Britain

Acting head of the BBC Trust Diane Coyle, said the popular BBC One soap is also too young and has too many people born in the UK to be an accurate reflection of an area such as Walthamstow, one of the boroughs on which the fictional Albert Square is based.

In her first public speech since taking over as chair of the BBC's governing body Miss Coyle - who is in the running to replace Lord Patten as head of the trust - said the programme did not provide an accurate picture of modern day Britain.

She said: 'The Audience Council figures suggested that there are almost twice as many white people living in fictional E20 as in real life E17, while the population of EastEnders tends to be younger than their real life counterparts and more likely to have been born in the UK.'

She said it would be 'daft' for the show to be a 'perfect replica' of the real world, but said it was 'important to ask whether the BBC can do more in its popular output to provide an authentic portrayal of life in modern Britain'.

In her speech at the London School of Economics, which will be widely seen as an application to replace Lord Patten who stepped down in May, she said the BBC's independence was 'not as secure as it might seem' and that it had 'become more and more entangled with parts of the machinery of government, Parliament and the State in all sorts of other, more or less obvious ways'.

She said there needed to be 'clearer terms of engagement' over what parliament has scrutiny over, otherwise 'there is a real risk that the BBC could in the future end up looking over its shoulder trying to please politicians rather than focusing on licence fee payers'.

Ms Coyle, an economist by profession whose husband is a BBC journalist, said there was 'every reason' to think the licence fee was 'sustainable' and called for a 'full, open public debate' about funding.

Her comments - made on the same day comedian Lenny Henry repeated his criticism that there are too few people from ethnic minorities on television - are based on research carried out by the Audience Council for England.

The BBC plans to spend £2.1million of licence fee money on fast-tracking ethnic minority talent onto the screen with a new 'diversity' committee.

Director-general Mr Hall said the corporation had 'to do more' to increase ethnic minority representation both on and off camera.

He said the 'diversity creative talent fund' would help 'fast-track' certain shows onto the screen and create a series of development programmes aimed at encouraging future commissioners and executives from ethnic minority backgrounds.

The director-general said he wanted to see ethnic minorities account for 15 per cent of air talent in the next three years and said he would also set 'local off-air targets' in London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leicester to reflect the population of those cities.

He also said he wanted those from ethnic minority backgrounds to account for 15 per cent of senior staff by 2020.

Actor Lenny Henry, who has criticised the TV and film industry in the past for not providing a 'fair and honest reflection of our society', has signed up to the committee to help advise the corporation on its representation of ethnic minorities.

The star joins other names including Paralympian Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, former footballer Jason Roberts and TV presenter and Liberal Democrat peer Floella Benjamin.

The BBC said they would 'advise and support the BBC on diversity'.

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EastEnders is 'twice as white' as the real East End warns BBC Trust boss as she calls for 'authentic portrayal of modern Britain'

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Diane Coyle, said the popular BBC One soap is also too young and has too many people born in the UK to be an accurate reflection of an area such as Walthamstow, one of the boroughs on which the fictional Albert Square is based.

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Fig. 11) Lucy Beale storyline: viewing figures

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Fig. 11) Lucy Beale storyline: viewing figures

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A summary of the statistics: EastEnders commanded more than 44% of the TV audience during the two live episodes of Who Killed Lucy Beale?

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EastEnders has become the most-watched television programme of the year so far with more than 10 million tuning in last night to discover who murdered Lucy Beale - and the BBC show also became the most-tweeted about in soap history eliciting more than a million Twitter posts.

The first of two episodes broadcast last night was watched by 10.84 million with a peak of 11.9 million. While the second episode drew in an audience of 10.3 million and peaked at 11.2 million, according to ratings specialists overnights.tv.

It commanded more than 44 percent of the TV audience and viewing figures were up on average by several million. Last Thursday's programme was watched by 7.1 million people.

The BBC soap also became the most-tweeted about episode ever recorded with rapped viewers sending more than a million messages about it on social network Twitter.

The second episode eclipsed the 508,678 messages sent during the first special by more than 10,000, with 519,359 tweets posted as the killer came closer to being unmasked, data from social analytics firm Kantar Social TV UK showed.

More than 30,000 tweets were published on the microblogging site in the minute after after Lucy's killer was revealed to be her 12-year-old half brother Bobby.

The revelation brought to an end almost a year of speculation about how Ian Beale's daughter, 20, came to die.

Confusingly, Bobby was not listed as one of the chief suspects publicised by the show in the build-up to the finale.

One unsuspecting Twitter user with the same name as the young killer was left bewildered after receiving a number of accusing messages from fans of the soap.

American Bobbie Beale said she thought the tweets referred to a real-life killer.

She told BuzzFeed News: "I was definitely confused. I saw the BBC tweet it, and then I realised. I looked up the show and I thought, Oh, this makes sense now, but at first I was really confused because I thought it was a real-life thing and I thought Bobby Beale killed someone and I was like, 'It's not me'."

She had initially sent a tweet asking why three people from Scotland were messaging her about "killing someone named Lucy". She then posted a selfie alongside the hashtag £IdidntKillLucy.

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EastEnders had us all of a Twitter last night

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EastEnders has become the most-watched television programme of the year so far with more than 10 million tuning in last night to discover who murdered Lucy Beale - and the BBC show also became the most-tweeted about in soap history eliciting more than a million Twitter posts.