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1950s EDGE OF NIGHT TV SOAP WITH COMMERCIALS

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Eyes Of A Generation.com

December 1, 1975…’The Edge Of Night’ Moves From CBS To ABC

This was the first serial in television history to switch networks. By the way, did you know the famous skyline in the opening is Cincinnati, Ohio as seen from Kentucky?

April 2, 1956 was a big day at CBS, as two of the first half hour daytime soaps debuted that day…’The Edge Of Night’, which came from Studio 64 (an old Dumont studio), and ‘As the World Turns’ which came from Studio 63.

At one point, ‘The Edge of Night’ audience was estimated to be more than 50% male, largely due to the show’s crime format and its late start time of 4:30 ET. In July 1963, the show was moved to 3:30 after CBS gave the 4:30 slot back to the affiliates. ‘The Edge of Night’ dominated the 3:30 slot even over otherwise-hit programs like NBC’s ‘You Don’t Say’ and ABC’s ‘Dark Shadows’ and ‘One Life to Live’. However, when the show moved to 2:30 on September 11, 1972, as per Procter and Gamble’s insistence upon running all of its shows in a continuous daily marathon, it slid from a solid #2 in the Nielsen ratings to near-last.

The last CBS episode on November 28, 1975, ended with the discovery that Nicole Travis Drake was alive. She had been presumed dead in an explosion 18 months earlier while on a boating trip with her husband Adam Drake. ABC aired the show beginning on December 1, with a 90-minute premiere episode that picked up where CBS had left off.

Below is a full CBS episode that I think is from around 1958. Very few of the CBS shows survived, so this is a rarity. Enjoy and share. -Bobby Ellerbee

By the way, the only other soap to do this would be the Procter & Gamble’s ‘Search for Tomorrow’, which would move from CBS to NBC in 1982.

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9 responses to “1950s EDGE OF NIGHT TV SOAP WITH COMMERCIALS”

  1. Mark Norman

    Knew that the skyline was Cincinnatti , did not know that the view was from Kentucky…the things you learn…thanks for posting!

  2. Bob Paine

    I’d like to see video of The Brighter Day. I understand very, very little exists.

  3. Steve Phillips

    And now “The Edge of Night.”

  4. Clark Humphrey

    In Seattle it was once on just before the afternoon edition of J.P. Patches, a legendary local kids’ show. That’s one reason the logo and “The EEDDDDGGGEEE__ of Night” phrase got stuck deep inside my head to this day.

  5. Ed DiCamillo

    Of course Edge suffered from low affiliate clearances; Many ABC stations delayed EoN or didn’t carry it at all (here in Philly WPVI-TV didn’t, but made a deal with WKBS to have them air it on an 18 hour delay the next morning). From what I’ve read affiliates balked because Edge wasn’t wholly or partly network-owned like the others–it of course was a P&G soap.

  6. Mark Tipton

    P&G….Tide…hence the name “soap opera”.

  7. Curtis R Anderson

    Without The Edge of Night, there may not have been a Law & Order.

  8. Maureen Carney

  9. James Stanley Barr

    One of the interesting things was that when Edge switched networks, they couldn’t announce the name of the network it was moving to on-air. Same thing when Search for Tomorrow switched in 82. Promos just simply asked viewers to follow them to “another network”.

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