Research Notes:
The average length of time spent watching soap operas for men was eight and one quarter years. The average length for women was eight and one half years. Since most of the respondents were college age, this supports the contentions that soap watchers tend to form soap viewing habits at a very early age, usually at the dawn of adolescence.
The average amount of soap opera viewing hours per week for women was nine and the average viewing hours per week for men was five.
There was another question asked in the survey that was not reported upon in the main body of the original article. It asked survey takers to provide their level of agreement or disagreement with the following statement: "There is more sex on daytime television than on nighttime television." Seventy percent of women agreed or strongly agreed, ten percent were undecided, and twenty percent disagreed. Fifty percent of men chose strongly agree or agree, twenty percent chose undecided, and thirty percent chose disagree.
Each of the (then eleven) soaps on the air was watched by at least five percent of the respondents. DAYS OF OUR LIVES was the most popular soap opera in the survey and was watched by seventy percent of survey takers.
The following soap operas were available to respondents (these were all the daytime soaps on the air at the time of the original research) to select as favorite soap or to indicate if they watched and how often: ALL MY CHILDREN, ANOTHER WORLD, AS THE WORD TURNS, THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL, DAYS OF OUR LIVES, GENERAL HOSPITAL, GUIDING LIGHT, LOVING, ONE LIFE TO LIVE, SANTA BARBARA, and THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS.
Since the original research, the following soap operas airing during the time of the research have been cancelled: ANOTHER WORLD, LOVING (later aka THE CITY), and SANTA BARBARA.
One soap opera was cancelled just a few months before the research began: GENERATIONS.
Two daytime soaps have come and gone between the time of the original research and the updated version of the article: PORT CHARLES (a spin-off of GENERAL HOSPITAL) and SUNSET BEACH.
A new soap opera premiered and remains on the air: PASSIONS.
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