By 1977, daytime TV comprised 90% of female audience. One producer made the observation, "What we're seeing is the impact of the first generation of Americans who have been reared on visual communication. They are the television generation, and their entire orientation is to images." Between 10:00a.m. and 4.30p.m. (New York time), soap operas comprised roughly 52% of programing while 34% were game shows and 14% were reruns of prime time shows. At night, Mary Tyler Moore observed, "When TV was a series medium, people had the security of watching 'Mary Tyler Moore' every Saturday night. But then the networks began moving away from the series to 'event' programing. They relieved the audience of the habit of staying home." It was noted, "Prime time dramatic series...the emphasis is on the action, the incident and the physical jeopardy of the larger-than-life hero."
"Essentially daytime is a habit medium," it was explained, "unlike prime time where you're likely to experiment. In daytime if you become a viewer of a program, you're pretty loyal viewer of that program. And no one wants to shake up those habit patterns once they're formed. The whole key whether it be a serial or a game show is simply involvement for the viewer at home. If you look at the most successful game shows, for instance, all of them offer a very high degree of involvement to the person watching. You can participate, you can play along, you can participate in the decision-making process of the contestants."
"In soap operas," it was mentioned, "there is no beginning, no middle and no end. A soap opera is a continuing saga with sometimes 4 storylines going on at once in an hour show. It is the emotional jeopardy of the characters, however, that is the stuff that soap operas are made of. Serial characters are real and the emotional traumas they endure – whether infidelity, an unhappy marriage, birth, death or rape – could happen to the viewer or to the neighbor next door. All these elements add to the strength of the serials and the day-after-day attraction they have for viewers who identify with the characters and consider themselves friends. In fact, it is not unusual for actors at the networks to get letters and calls from viewers warning them of potential dangers on the shows."
