The End of an Era: Last 'Guiding Light' Episode Airs Today

[Henry]

It's the end of an era.

The well-loved and widely-watched soap opera 'Guiding Light' will air its final show today.

For 72 years, first on radio and then on television, the show has been entertaining audiences with 20,000 episodes of affairs, murder, intrigue and drama. Earlier this year, however, CBS announced it was canceling the show due to declining ratings.

Beth Chamberlin, a Danville native, has been playing Beth Raines on the show for the better part of 20 years. Even though the end is sad, she says it's time to move on.

"I think it won't sink in for maybe a month later that we're actually not going back," Chamberlin said on CBS '60 Minutes.' "We're not just light on story right now, there is no story to be told."

The final episode airs this afternoon at 3 p.m. on Channel 3.

Jack Thurston will have much more from Beth Chamberlin and the last day of 'Guiding Light' tonight on the Channel 3 News at 6 p.m.

[mirjo]

It's foolish they would take the longest running soap off. It should be the very last one to ever go off the air. I don't think soaps have any less of an audience than any other daytime TV...there is just more to watch now with cable networks. CBS could have cut it back to 30 min, that would have cut their production costs in half, saved the show and kept the fans happy. In fact all the soaps could have been cut to 30min. It was really that simple.

[trussell]

CBS could have cut it back to 30 min, that would have cut their production costs in half, saved the show and kept the fans happy. In fact all the soaps could have been cut to 30min. It was really that simple.

Actually Lisa,  I don't think it's that simple.  Cutting the show time by half would only equate to 50% savings if all the costs were tied directly to the length of it (variable costs).  I'm sure that many of them were fixed costs.  But who am I to argue of start something

-Trevor

[mirjo]

I wouldn't know. Bit I do wonder how many viewers is considered "enough," if 2million isn't it? How many people are actually watching tv in the course of a day? Since you seem to know so much trussell, answer me that!

[trussell]

2,108,117 Viewers is considered "enough".  But I may have just pulled a "Special Ed" and made that statistic up.

-Trevor