Daytime soaps on their deathbed

The daytime soap opera is dead. It just hasn't been entirely buried yet.

We've learned that yet another longtime stalwart has been canceled. CBS is dropping "As the World Turns" after 53 years on the air. Its final episode airs in September.

That comes on the heels of the network's cancellation of "Guiding Light," which bit the dust in September after 57 years on TV. If you count its radio run, "GL's" run totaled 72 years.

That leaves CBS with just two daytime soaps ("Young and the Restless" and "Bold and the Beautiful").

ABC still has three ("All My Children," "General Hospital" and "One Life to Live"), while NBC is down to just one ("Days of Our Lives").

But they're all living on borrowed time. One day in the not-too-distant future, we'll talk about network daytime soap operas the way we talk about prime-time variety shows — extinct dinosaurs of another television age.

You could argue that daytime soaps were harmed by, well, all the cliches for which they've become infamous. What with the evil twins, multiple marriages and characters returning from the dead, they're often over the top.

But not only have daytime soaps done some great, compelling storylines, but they had all those goofy elements when they were incredibly popular.

My mother watched "As the World Turns" when I was a kid (many, many years ago). I have very clear memories of her doing her ironing in front of the TV while she watched the show. And of the spinning globe that appeared at the beginning and end of the show.

And I have vague memories of Nancy, Bob, Tom and Lisa Hughes — the residents of fictional Oakdale. (And I had to look up the name of the town.)

But the world has changed a lot since then. Whereas it was once a fairly common thing for women to be home doing the ironing and watching their soaps on TV, that's not so much the case anymore.

Even if daytime soaps were the greatest thing on TV, the audience just wouldn't be there anymore.

And, unlike the '50s, '60s, '70s and '80s, broadcast networks are no longer raking in huge amounts of money. Like the soap operas, networks are fighting for their survival.

So they're in no mood to be paying to produce daytime soaps when there are more lucrative ways to go.

CBS replaced "Guiding Light" with a new version of "Let's Make a Deal." The game show is not only getting better ratings, but it's far cheaper to produce.