FLASHBACK: Soap Opera Prospects in TV a Puzzle 1948

Soap Opera Prospects in TV a Puzzle

by Wayne Oliver
Chicago Daily Tribune
September 19, 1948

NEW YORK - What role will the soap opera play in television?

That question is causing a lot of brow wrinkling among executives of advertising agencies that produce radio shows for sponsors.

Some uncertainties in the situation were outlined to Adrian Samish, youthful resident of Show Productions, Inc. The firm is the producing subsidiary of the Dancer-Fitzgerald-Sample agency, which handles several day time programs high in the Hooper rating list.

Samish says one of the first questions that arises is, how can the housewife get her daily chores done and watch her favorite day time serial on television at the same time? Listening to the radio didn't present this problem.

Another major problem, he says, would be expense. It would cost far more to produce a day time serial for television than for radio. There's also the question, he points out, of whether television will expand to a full time basis, like radio, or will become primarily a night time medium.

Despite the uncertainties, Samish says, the answer must be found, and Show Productions Inc., is working on it.

As a produce of day time radio serials, Samish isn't too happy to hear them called soap operas and worse by their critics. "We never have said it's a great art form," he said. "But we do say women love it, or they wouldn't write tens of thousands of letters to us expressing interest and approval."

Samish declared day time serials consistently attract the greatest audiences despite a variety of other type programs available on radio during the same time. If they weren't popular, he said, they'd be taken off the air in a hurry.

He attributes the popularity of the day time serial to the fact that it gives the housewife a chance to "escape from her own particular circumstance of living into wherever her imagination wants to take her."

EDITOR'S NOTE: Samish went on to become a producer for television shows like THE STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO, CANNON and STARSKY & HUTCH. He died in 1976 at the age of 66.