40 years ago this summer.  To me this is the GOAT CBS daytime promo and the yardstick to which all CBS daytime promos are measured.

 

Thanks @GymnastGuy for posting this Summer 1986 promo for all four shows. So few Summer 1986 promos have surfaced.

 

I saw this quote from The Boston Globe on the We Love Soaps this day in history column...

In a last-ditch effort to save the soap, Brian Frons, CBS manager of daytime programs, is hoping that forthcoming episodes of SEARCH, featuring expensive location footage of Hong Kong, will provide much-needed excitement, along with some adrenalin for the ratings. However, if the numbers fail to improve, there are two scenarios under way: CBS will either move the soap to the 4 p.m. graveyard time slot or simply cancel it altogether.

So, if Search didn’t move to NBC it seemed likely that Capitol would still debut but SFT would get the Love of Life treatment with certain cancellation soon afterward.  Could you imagine Edge vs Search at 4pm?

SFT didn't need another ill conceived adventure plot with location filming. It couldn't hurt but more attention paid to the structure and history of the show was what was needed. Turning it into the Travis and Liza show was a mistake.

......

This isn't new but it was new to me. A CBS Daytime look at 1983-1984.

CBS Daytime 1983 84

6 hours ago, DRW50 said:

This isn't new but it was new to me. A CBS Daytime look at 1983-1984.

CBS Daytime 1983 84

Thanks, some nice soap footage there.

"How you gonna get that kind of money?"

"Work."

"Where are you gonna go to work?"

"On the streets."

Maybe the most honest conversation between two kids on TV that I've ever heard, lol.

Thanks, @DRW50 !!

18 hours ago, Soapsuds said:

Whoa - is this really December 1999?? That's wild. I'm currently in June 1999 and Blake/Ross aren't even together again. Holly just got released from the mental ward. To think just 6 months later, Blake is 8 months pregnant with his next baby... that's... wild LOL.

10 hours ago, alwaysAMC said:

Whoa - is this really December 1999?? That's wild. I'm currently in June 1999 and Blake/Ross aren't even together again. Holly just got released from the mental ward. To think just 6 months later, Blake is 8 months pregnant with his next baby... that's... wild LOL.

GL should have learned from Philliip writes a novel and visualizes his characters failed storyline...though this was the perfect storyline for Nola. Who is the blond at Company who has the greatest mores realistic reaction to Reva..."Oh God," and tries to put her head down. Reva was most fun when people openly were annoyed with her. Toothy blond Bill, who looks nothing like his TV parents.

1 hour ago, Mitch64 said:

GL should have learned from Philliip writes a novel and visualizes his characters failed storyline...though this was the perfect storyline for Nola. Who is the blond at Company who has the greatest mores realistic reaction to Reva..."Oh God," and tries to put her head down. Reva was most fun when people openly were annoyed with her. Toothy blond Bill, who looks nothing like his TV parents.

I had totally forgotten this period...by this point you could already tell they had no idea what to do with Blake. At least Jerry and Maureen got to have fun.

That was Selena at Company.

From Variety's 50 Years of CBS tribute 1988. Soaps received short shrift with this article not evening mentioning ATWT, a ratings powerhouse in the 60's which brought in huge profits. And who can forget the contributions of Agnes Dickson!

Sudsers bubble up touchy topics by Natasha Sizlo

With a spicy formula of corporate takeovers, cloning, teen suicide and a whole lot of sex, CBS’ daytime sudsers continue to triumph as the network approaches its 500th straight week atop the daytime Nielsen ratings. According to network execs, the daytime drama lineup has established both a production and a content standard for serial dramas across the networks and continues to draw millions of viewers both domestically and across the globe. “It’s important for us to reflect the realities and the tensions that women experience today,” says Paul Rauch, executive producer of “Guiding Light.” “I think you can tell a much more exciting story about women today than you ever could before. Women are more exciting today han they have been.”

“Guiding Light,” the longestrunning program in broadcast history, celebrated its 61st anniversary Jan. 25. Rauch explains, “It’s consistent with the best of what daytime is and where it’s come from.” “Guiding Light,” first broadcast on the radio on NBC’s Red Network, debuted on Jan. 25, 1937. The program was a 15-minute drama created and written by Irna Phillips. Phillips broadcast one or two stories with half-adozen characters, five days a week, every week of the year. In its long history, “Guiding Light” has surpassed other daytime dramas in exploring socially relevant topics. In 1961 “Guiding Light” tackled the seldom discussed issue of uterine cancer. While the character recovered from the cancer, she went through a lot of difficulty at the time because she was reluctant to get a Pap smear. This story encouraged women to be alert

Since then, CBS daytime has approached such issues as breast cancer (with the first mammogram done on camera, Dec. 17, 1991), blindness, rape, teen suicide, eating disorders, substance abuse, postpartum depression and AIDS. “Guiding Light” made its passage to television when it premiered on CBS June 30, 1952. It is the only radio drama to make the transition to TV that’s still on the air today. Nowadays, the writers of “Guiding Light” have at least a dozen stories harmonizing at once, with roughly 35 characters, five times a week, 260 shows a year.

Rauch explains the evolution of the serial drama: “Irna believed in the importance of families. She passed her legacy on to writers Bill Bell and Agnes Dickson, and those two writers went on to be great stalwarts of the daytime business.” “What we did in the ’50s no longer applies in the ’90s. We were limited with production, sets and stories that were almost totally tied up in family issues. We have much more latitude now,” says William J. Bell, who became co-creator, senior head writer and senior executive producer of “The Young & the Restless.” “Y&R” just celebrated its 25th anniversary and has spent 485 consecutive weeks as the most watched daytime program. When “Y&R” premiered on CBS on March 26, 1973, it revo¬ lutionized the daytime genre with its emphasis on the younger generation. William Bell’s 25-year tenure as the head writer of “ Y & R” is the longest in the history of daytime TV. “From the onset it was highly received. It was a show that was very different,” Bell says. “We dealt mostly with younger people and the sensuality and the sexuality that was prevalent in the early ’70s. What it did was reflect what was going on in the world at the time. It wasn’t there for shock value. ... It was a serial that caught on like no other before or since

It speaks of Agnes' character that she never gave her daughter Brenda a job.

23 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

It speaks of Agnes' character that she never gave her daughter Brenda a job.

LOL!!

Paul Rauch: "Women are more exciting today than they have been."

That sounds...icky, for some reason.

Rauch was right about one thing, though: families ARE the bedrock of daytime drama. Something that most people who work in the industry (including Rauch himself) seem to have forgotten.