ABSTRACT
Approximately twelve soap operas are shown daily, each half-an-hour to an hour-and-a-half long. e first of them goes on the air at about 10:00 .., and they run almost continuously until about 3:30 .. (of course, the times vary according to local programming schedules). In 1975 the New York Times Magazine reported that 20 million people watch soap operas daily, the average program attracting 6.7 million viewers, almost 90 percent of them female. Further:
e households break down economically and educationally in proportions similar to the population as a whole-51.3 percent with household incomes under $10,000, for instance, and 23.9 percent with incomes over $15,000. About 24.8 percent of household heads have only an elementary school education, while 56.2 percent have a high school education or better… . e programs gross more than $300 million a year from the makers of soaps, deodorants, cake mixes and other household products, providing a disproportionate share of network profits though nighttime budgets are much larger.1
