It's official: Guiding Light is canceled

The die was cast today. CBS canceled Guiding Light, the longest running TV program still on the air. The soap opera will cease broadcasting on Friday, September 18, 2009.
As I wrote the other day, the prospects looked grim for Guiding Light, and apparently my idea of letting the show continue until it reached its 75th anniversary (three years from now) was only popular with fans. I heard from many the past couple of days. They, like me, are sorry to see Guiding Light come to an end.
This means the CBS daytime soap presence is down to two and one-half hours, three shows – The Young & the Restless, The Bold & the Beautiful and As the World Turns. ABC still has three one-hour daytime dramas – All My Children, One Life to Live and General Hospital. NBC has only Days of Our Lives remaining. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that the soaps are becoming dinosaurs among the daytime landscape. Ten years from now they may all be gone.
Sad to say, but the heyday of the genre is definitely long past. The soaps have never really recovered from the loss of audience suffered during the O.J. Simpson trial, not to mention the plethora of viewing options in daytime that simply didn't exist before expanded cable programming.
To Guiding Light loyal viewers -- and I know you're out there -- my advice is this: enjoy the last five months. I expect Executive Producer Ellen Wheeler to make the most of the time they have left. That should mean more good stuff with Grant Aleksander, as well as this exciting Olivia/Natalia romance. Kim Zimmer will be around for the wrap, not to mention some other faves like Robert Newman and the always brilliant Justin Deas.

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