The Secret of the Soap Opera's Success

The love of anything can span generations, really. It's all about the type and frequency of relating going on within familial relationships, specifically, the relationship between a mother and a daughter. In this day and age it is becoming less common, in my opinion, that soap opera viewership is passed from one generation to the next, simply because mothers and daughters don't spend as much time together at home during the afternoon of weekdays. I mean, I don't know about you, but my parents worked weekdays, and I was in school, so none of us, for the most part, had time to watch soap operas. I'd be remiss, if I didn't point out that through the advent of 24 hour cable soap opera channels that argument is becoming less viable, but still, soap operas are more of a product of weekday boredom than must see TV programming on par with the best primetime television has to offer.

Soap operas can span generations, but usually it's through an older relative, such as a grandmother, who watches a younger relative, like, say, a granddaughter, during the weekdays, sharing her love of daytime melodrama with the youngster along the way. Or the reverse can happen with a younger relative sharing their love of primetime and teen soaps, such as Beverly Hills 90210, Dawson's Creek, Smallville, One Tree Hill, and The OC with an older relative. And as long as there are soap operas on, this practice will continue, but as societal conventions and the way television programming is presented shifts, so will the way and the frequency with which relatives will share their love of soap operas with one another.

What makes soaps last is a paradox. It's like asking someone why he or she loves whom he or she loves. On the surface, the person could probably rattle off a bunch of viable and sound reasons why their beloved is their beloved, but deep down inside I'd bet he or she would truly have no idea what the driving force behind their feelings for their significant other is. The person just knows that he or she is comfortable with this other person and, to borrow the catchphrase from an old Mazda ad campaign, it just feels right, and, frankly, they're just there. People in general do not want to be alone, and so, if someone finds someone else who they want to be around and who wants to be around them, while it's not everything, it's a lot of the reason why most relationships start and, more importantly, last.

A big part of success is just showing up, and five days a week soap operas are there. They are there for you to laugh at, cry with, and expect the unexpected of. And the more they change, the more they stay the same, kind of like a relationship. And maybe the fact that they remain is what enables them to remain in some weird way. Fans know their favorite soap is going to be there year in and year out, unlike the latest flavor of the month sitcom or police procedural. And in a world of unknowns, that's a very comforting thing. So, I guess the moral of the story is: Never underestimate the power of reliability.