It used to be soaps versus game shows. Then all the talk shows arrived--Phil Donohue's, then Oprah Winfrey's, Ricki Lake's, Sally Jesse Raphael's, etc.--themselves the progeny of the morning shows. With the later, trashier talk shows came the judge shows. Real-life soap opera proved more gripping than fictional, for some reason. I don't get it (I've always preferred fantasy to reality myself).
Another thing that screwed soaps, I think, is that there came to be too many of them. In the far-off days of my girlhood, soaps were on for only a couple of hours a day; late morning/early afternoon and late afternoon were reserved for movies. I would get home from school, watch Another World and Dark Shadows and then watch a movie. All three major networks aired a movie at three or four, not to mention what was on offer on channels 5, 9, and 11. The movies fell by the wayside, more soaps were created to fill the gap, and most increased in length to a full hour, and I bet the glut overwhelmed a lot of people. The talk shows were a refreshing novelty, and, as they got more lurid, they sucked in ever more gawkers. Soaps, as ridiculous as their plots can get, just can't compete with freak shows.
