More Writer's Strike Doom and Gloom

"This could be the final nail in the coffin of soap operas," said Robert Thompson, a professor of communications at Syracuse University. "You take those soap operas away and find something like talk shows or game shows to put in their place, and the chances of the soaps coming back are slim. They're too expensive. They've got huge casts. They don't have a rerun season. They're incredibly inefficient, and talk shows tend to perform at least as well."

CBS and ABC remain major players in the soap game, but ratings have been in steady decline since the '80s. Talk shows also are much cheaper to produce.

"If you give the networks any reason to take them away, I have the feeling that this 70-year run for 'Guiding Light' is over," Thompson said. "It's curtains for the whole form."