Guiding Light

Guiding Light (known as The Guiding Light before 1975) is an American television soap opera. It is listed in Guinness World Records as the longest-running drama in American daytime television history, and the longest-running drama in American broadcast history. The series was created by Irna Phillips, and premiered on NBC Radio on January 25, 1937. On June 2, 1947, the series was transferred to CBS Radio, before the series premiere on June 30, 1952, on CBS-TV. Between 1952 and 1956, the series was broadcast concomitantly in the morning on radio, and in the afternoon on television, before the show ended on radio on June 29, 1956, but the series continued airing on television. The series expended to a half-hour in 1968 (and also switched from broadcasting live to pre-taping around the same time), and then to a full-hour on November 7, 1977. The series broadcast its 15,000th CBS episode on September 6, 2006. On September 18, 2009, after a run of 72 years in broadcasting, and 18,262 episodes, the series aired its final episode on CBS. Throughout its 72 years, the series had families: the Ruthledges, the Holdens, the Bauers, the Robertses, the Reynoldses, the Langs, the Palmers, the Grants, the Harpers, the Benedicts, the Fletchers, the Janningses, the Lipseys, the Scotts, the Norrises, the Fraziers, the Masons, the Thorpes, the Stapletons, the McFarrens, the Marlers, the Spauldings, the Watermans, the Parkers, the Wexlers, the Reardons, the Richards, the Staffords, the Chamberlains, the Lewises, the Shaynes, the Sampsons, the Raineses, the Coopers, the Reades, the Santoses, the Laynes, the Winslows, the Arturos, the Boudreaus, and more...