Editing Soap opera (section)

=====Causes=====
As women increasingly worked outside of the home, daytime television viewing declined.{{citation needed|date=August 2022}} New generations of potential viewers were not raised watching soap operas with their mothers, leaving the shows' long and complex storylines foreign to younger audiences. As viewers age, ratings continue to drop among young adult women, the demographic group for which soap opera advertisers pay the most.<ref name="WSJ">{{cite news| url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304186404576389693935512286#articleTabs%3Darticle | work=The Wall Street Journal | first=Sam | last=Schechner | title=As Venerable Soap Operas Die Off, Fans Fight for One More Life to Live | date=June 18, 2011}}</ref> Those who might watch in workplace breakrooms are not counted, as [[Nielsen ratings|Nielsen]] does not track television viewing outside the home. The rise of cable and the [[Internet]] has also provided new sources of entertainment during the day.<ref name="WSJ"/> The genre's decline has additionally been attributed to [[reality television]] displacing soap operas as TV's dominant form of melodrama.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/arts/television/06kant.html |title=After 72 Years, Springfield Gets a Stop Sign |newspaper=The New York Times | first=Barbara | last=Kantrowitz | date=September 6, 2009}}</ref> An early term for the reality TV genre was ''docu-soap''.<ref>{{cite dictionary|title=docu-soap|url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/docusoap|dictionary=Merriam-Webster|access-date=July 10, 2017}}</ref> A precursor to reality TV, the televised 1994–95 [[O. J. Simpson murder case]], both preempted and competed with an entire season of soaps, transforming viewing habits and leaving soap operas with 10 percent fewer viewers after the trial ended.<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://www.vanityfair.com/style/society/2014/06/oj-simpson-trial-reality-tv-pop-culture|title=How O. J. Simpson Killed Popular Culture|last1=Anolik|first1=Lili|date=7 May 2014|magazine=Vanity Fair|access-date=16 August 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last1=Passalacqua|first1=Connie|title=Post-Trial, Is There Life for the Soaps?|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-08-15-ca-35367-story.html|website=Los Angeles Times|access-date=16 August 2015|date=15 August 1995}}</ref>

Daytime programming alternatives such as [[talk show]]s, [[game show]]s, and [[court show]]s cost up to 50% less to produce than scripted dramas,<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/arts/television/09soap.html | work=The New York Times | first1=Bill | last1=Carter | first2=Brian | last2=Stelter | title=CBS Cancels 'As the World Turns,' Procter & Gamble's Last Soap Opera | date=December 9, 2009}}</ref> making those formats more profitable and attractive to networks, even if they receive the same or slightly lower ratings than soap operas. A network may even prefer to return a time slot to its local stations to keeping a soap opera with disappointing ratings on the air, as was the case with ''[[Sunset Beach (TV series)|Sunset Beach]]'' and ''Port Charles''. Compounding the financial pressure on scripted programming in the 2007–2010 period was a decline in advertising during the [[Great Recession]], which led shows to reduce their budgets and cast sizes.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/03/as-the-big-3s-world-turns/|title=As the Big 3's World Turns|newspaper=New York Times | first=Jerry | last=Garrett | date=December 3, 2008 | access-date=May 23, 2010}}</ref> In addition to these external factors, a litany of production decisions has been cited by soap opera fans as contributing to the genre's decline, such as clichéd plots, a lack of diversity that narrowed audience appeal, and the elimination of core families.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Mulcahy|first1=Kevin Jr.|title=25 Biggest Blunders In Daytime Soap Opera History|url=http://www.welovesoaps.net/2011/09/25blunders.html|website=[[We Love Soaps]]|access-date=16 August 2015|date=25 November 2011}}</ref>