Research into Soap Operas

What is a Soap Opera? 

A Soap Opera is a serialized drama which runs for 52 weeks of the year with continuous strands dealing with everyday themes.

Major Soaps have acted like big news programmes and major serials as ‘flagship programmes’ which help to brand channels, for example: EastEnders is branded by BBC and Coronation Street is branded by ITV.

The term 'Soap' in the USA is still referred to daytime television drama; these dominate the late morning and early afternoon slot - 11am to 2pm. 

Soap Opera is an international phenomenon and in almost every country with a television station has its own soap opera this is because they are cheap to produce and are popular with large audiences. For example Soap Operas were called 'telenovelas', originated in Mexico and Cuba in the 1950s and were later also produced in Brazil and Puerto Rico. 

The major issues why a popular serial dramas eventually comes to an end is because the scriptwriters simply run out of ideas, soaps do not suffer with this problem, for a number of reasons: 

1. The continuous, open-ended nature of the programme which means that it can be in any order therefore the episode solutions do not have to be found in every situation which occurs in that episode.
2. Strands tend to be developed by a group of several writers who take it in turns to write an episode.
3. Hence the action of a particular strand does not have to conform to the demands of a time frame.
4. Strands can be developed slowly over several hours.

Created by Sara Northover