But instead of the social and political concerns that had defined so much of the network era soaps, the challenges faced by soap characters in the 80s tended to lack explicit connection to the issues of the day, promising instead a turn away from such matters. The generic hybridization and broadened audiences of soaps across the 60s and 70s magnified and peaked in the early 80s. Not only did action adventure and science fiction plots infiltrate the narratives, but the styles and sensibilities of comedy, music video, and the fairy tale also made appearances. The pleasures of the ’80s soaps spoke to real desires and needs shared by a wide cross section of the American public.ĭaytime soap opera had been long invested in realist drama, but in the 80s many of daytime’s highest-rated serials took a fantastical turn. Never again would soaps be as lucrative for the networks, or as prominently Soaps remained profitable across this decade, but the gradual decline in their earning power from 1984 on would be permanent.
By 1984, the networks’ yearly daytime revenues would reach their all-time apex, just shy of $1.25 billion in ad sales. The frenzy at the Annex typified the status of the US daytime soap in the early 1980s, with new technologies like VCRs, new social identities like “working women,” and new trends in soap storytelling, like the fantasy-filled exploits of young romantic pairs, helping daytime drama reach an unprecedented peak in profitability, popularity, and cultural legitimacy.
The customers were working women and men, unable to see the soap during the business day, and drawn to a continuing drama featuring adventure, romance, even science fiction, as Luke and Laura, the “supercouple” at the center of the story, sought to stop the bad guys from freezing the world.
Impressed by the turnout, the Annex even began playing back the week’s five episodes on Sundays, turning its “ General Hospital marathon” into a daylong event, accompanied by food and, when the episodes ended, live music to keep the party going. That evening during happy hour he would play the episode on the TVs of the Pierce Street Annex, selling drinks to the after-work crowd eager to follow the events in the fictional Port Charles, New York. With his new Betamax recorder, he would videotape General Hospital each weekday afternoon. In 1981, one Washington, DC, bar owner found a unique way to bring in customers.
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