History of Soap Operas

The name 'Soap opera' is a phrase first founded in the 1930s in the USA. It was originally used to describe radio series that were sponsored by the manufacturers of soap powder; hence 'soap'. The 'opera' part came from the fact that they were about dilemmas and other dramatic or melodramatic situations, and the name is now used all over the world to describe the Programmes.

The first soap was actually aired on BBC Radio 4 and it was called the Archers, but it is Coronation Street that is the longest running TV soap in the world and it still has great success today. However it was programmes such as Dallas in America that lead to the production of more British soaps such as EastEnders and it was in the 1980’s that soaps became increasingly popular. This was then followed by the success of Australian soaps such as Neighbours and Home and Away, these tended to be aimed at a younger audience through the use of characters and storyline and this again less Britain to follow suit with the production of Hollyoaks which has a teenage target audience and it has had massive success due to this.

There are many conventions that all soaps follow, most British soaps will all feature most of these conventions:

· It is a serialised drama, and it usually runs most days of the week and all year round, it will also be shown in the peak dinner time slot of around 7-7:30.
· Soaps deal with continuous narratives that deal with ‘Kitchen sink drama’.
· Most commonly it will have a well-known theme tune, which has not changed much over the years.
· The casts for soap operas are normally larger than that of dramas, but it is limited to how many characters are used in each episode so that the storylines can be shown more in depth.
· The storylines are often interlinked between the characters and they are usually open-ended so that they can be carried on throughout episodes.
· They are often set in small and central areas e.g. a street which connects all of the characters.
· Special episodes are aired for real life special event such as Christmas’ specials.
· British soaps are all about realism and they tend to deal with working class characters very much in contrast to the American soaps.
· Soap episodes often begin with a hook in which one of the narratives from a previous episode is continued.
· There will be many storylines going on within each episode all involving different characters and the action will switch between them until they are resolved.