Lights Out for Guiding Light

[@sandramare5011]

I miss this show so much......

[@nomadnametab]

i watched guiding light every afternoon while i was in college. got to know the show well. when i went into the army i couldn't keep up with them. my mother would write and update me on the goings on, going on in springfield. once i was in the barracks and reading one letter outloud to the guys. an officer stepped into the doorway and said he heard all that and sure hoped these people weren't friends and relatives of mine. the army found out i could lose my security clearance. he was relieved it was a tv show . :)

[@MiguelDante]

So sad to see to see the lighthouse beacon extinguished after 72 years...

[@williamtillman3239]

Bring back the "Guiding Light"! I can't watch "Let's Make a Deal" anymore!!!

[@booberry349]

William Tillman I agree I miss Reva

[@Memerewendy]

I still am heartbroken by this

[@jvarela965]

Greatest GL character was Roger Thorpe. The late Michael Zaslow was such a charismatic actor. When he became ill with Lou Gerhrig's disease CBS fired him.

[@khambrelllewis1246]

GUIDING LIGHT The Daytime Soap Opera Of All Time On CBS

[@amyevans8396]

I miss seeing kim and Robert everyday they are my family

[@fousies]

Still miss this so much!

[@gingin2u]

Still missing The Guiding Light

[@IWantToMature85]

gingin2u why would they cut the show?

[@dianemilligan3839]

@@IWantToMature85 Low ratings…

[@carlymypup]

We'll miss you!!

[@demsam1]

I was really down today not being able to watch my favorite show that I taped every day to watch after work. Lovely escape time and i cant believe that CBS would cancel a show with wonderful actors/actresses such as GL instead of some of those ridiculous other ones. I am extremely disappointed in CBS network

[@ACcountryFan]

...because in a span of one year, 1983-1984, Mike, Hope, Bert, and Hillary Bauer were all written off, as was Alan Spaulding. The writers shifted to Alexandra and her side of the family with the introduction of Lujack and the Simon Hall character who turned out to be Lujack's half-brother and more focus continued around those families instead of the Bauer's which by 1985 had been dwindled down to Ed and Rick. Maureen was a Reardon turned Bauer by marriage.

[@adrianbush6567]

Soap operas are The Best

[@chadbaughman401]

I miss GL and ATWT

[@MrJuly1990ish]

They forgot "Capital" on that list!

[@pinksky111]

I will miss guiding light!

[@ACcountryFan]

I watched the final episode and liked it but if there's only one complaint it's this: why wasn't there a cast farewell? Maybe one was taped but it never aired here if that was the case. After it shown Josh and Reva drive off and the lighthouse in the background it had "The End" come across the screen. After the commercials aired the credits rolled rather quick and the local news came on. I was puzzled why there wasn't a cast farewell segment of some kind if you know what I mean.

[@54susieq]

they didn't have to take away one of the hottest soaps of daytime t. v. only to replace it with another game show.i like ''let's make a deal''. but ''guiding light'' is oh so much better!!!!!

[@DegrassiInstantStar]

CBS really truly is horrid. GL finally was getting good again, and the final episode was amazing. Best in a LONG while!! CBS better pick it up because now ATWT is now rumoured to get cut.

[@dianemilligan3839]

I miss Guiding Light! 💔

[@feelgoodwithsharontv8445]

Such a tragedy! I guess they couldn't see that the future of streaming would be a perfect fit for soap operas. Love #GuidingLight The Bauers Years and #AstheWorldTurns

[@walterrobinson7143]

They can't do that. GL will be gone forever, and we'll miss this soap opera.

[@hshawn00]

@garavaliaj I agree with you. David Kriezman and Ellen Wheeler should be ashamed of themselves. They help put the final nails in this once great soap. I've been watching old clips of the show here on youtube and I realize the Guiding Light that I love dies a long time ago. The beginning of death for this show started with the death of maureen and the exit of Beverly mckinsey as Alexandra. Guiding light limped along on life support for many years but it truly died years ago.

[@heathermonroe1266]

Guiding LIght died in the late 90's. The show once again centered around Reva: Ghost Reva, Amish Reva, Reva Clone, princess Reva, time travel reva, physic reva and menopause reva. Oh lawd I am burnt out. 😂😂😂. Plug should have been pulled in 1998 or 2005 when the huge budget cuts began and Jerry Ver Dorn quiting after 26 years.

[@laminage]

I told UK Soap Fans about what happened on Guiding Light, most notably the Firing of Michael Zaslow due to ALS and they were disgusted. The biggest irony was that some Actors did The Ice Bucket Challenge not knowing it was inspired by Michael Zaslow. Also, it was the first Soap Opera to feature African Americans with Billy Dee Williams amongst others.

[@ilovebeinagirl]

Oh yea they screwed Michael Zaslow big time. At least he was welcomed back to OLTL with open arms.

[@rhondacorbett8776]

Sad bring back

[@alwaysGLfan]

@garavaliaj just want to let you know reva { kim zimmer } is going to start being on one life to live starting oct 1st. they have a few of the old GL actors but it will never be the same.

[@gailjohnson2761]

Bring back on streaming channels

[@ACcountryFan]

oh okay...in a lot of cases writers and the producers can be blamed for it. sometimes those portraying the characters want to move on. most people cite the mid '80s as the turning point on the show because the focus shifted away from the Bauer's as a core family and 95% of the stories revolved around the Spaulding and Lewis families in their business wars. The working class Reardon's were phased out to make way for the Cooper's. Charita Bauer, it's said, wanted to be written out.

[@adelgado75]

I hope CBS does the same tribute for As The world Turns.

[@musicaldramaqueen]

Nooooo! I don't want to accept this. Hrmph I will miss.

[@ACcountryFan]

The most revealing thing is that of all the soaps on the air, excluding GL, is that Y&R and B&B have the biggest ratings at 3.2/11 and 2.2/7 and the #3 ranked soap was DAYS OF OUR LIVES at 1.7/6 Isn't that quite a drop in ratings? The #2 show with 2.2 million and the #3 show with 1.7 million. The #1 show had 3.2 million. In all fairness, every show from #3 to #8 all had ratings in the 1 million category with GL being rated the last at 1.4 and ALL MY CHILDREN ranked #7 with 1.5

[@ACcountryFan]

I don't think it will. Early in the year that was the hope but I get the feeling that if the people behind the scenes knew that the show would have a second home on another network there would have been promo's for it or some sort of hint that the show would go on. After killing off Alan Spaulding, that to me was serious proof that there won't be a revival of the show. if the people involved had some sort of plan to keep the show going they wouldn't have had Alan die.

[@ACcountryFan]

let's also not forget that the writers killed off Bill Bauer in 1983 although the character hadn't been a major focal point since the late '60s...but the idea to kill him off in 1983 and this time make it real instead of a presumed death, I think foreshadowed the Bauer's eventual fate on the show. The 1983 fisherman story was uploaded on You Tube a few months back but it's no longer available. I liked seeing it again although the scene with Bill and Eli is creepy.

[@sertorrhenclegane]

I never said that. And I can blame viewers. They do nothing but complain at the show's quality and then cry when they get cancelled. That's where the fault lies, not because they have jobs but because they don't watch out of some misplaced belief that the show will improve if they don't watch.

[@ACcountryFan]

by veteran what do you mean? are you talking about the age of the actors and actresses or the character's themselves? A lot of the blame can be put on the writer's but also a lot of the blame can be put on the simple fact that some character's do run out of steam. Rita Stapleton is a good example. She was married to Ed Bauer but was having an affair with Alan Spaulding...plus she was being tormented by Roger Thorpe...but she was written off because the writer's couldn't find a new story.

[@ACcountryFan]

I don't think Don Stewart, the actor that played Mike Bauer from 1968 through 1984, wanted written off the show. I think his character, along with his daughter, Hope, were victims of the change in direction. Then there was the killing off of Hillary Bauer in 1984. I have a lot of old issues of Soap Opera Digest and a lot of the viewer mail that was published in those magazines during the mid '80s had fans wondering what was happening to the show...

[@danielmorse6597]

The network dumped them.

[@christopherhayes2434]

My grandma watched this show.

[@elainemurley9509]

Sad they went away

[@CrimsonFury006]

From what happened here, soap operas have become an endangered species. Talk shows, game shows, and small claims court shows are becoming more popular daytime programs, due to it costing less to produce. The other big reason, there are more women in the American workforce than ever before, as well as in college (women being the main demographic for this genre). From all of this, soap operas will be extinct, or at least critically endangered, by the end of this decade.

[@ilovebeinagirl]

Well, here we are at the end of the decade, with you being proven correct, with only 4 soaps left and limping along. The highest rated soap this season (Y&R) would've been the lowest rated soap in the 1976-77 season, with a 2.9 share.

[@gailjohnson2761]

Peacock

[@simonepunzo4890]

I miss ATWT

[@debralorenzen2637]

Proctor and Gamble made a big no Huge mistake

[@Mojowrk]

Well the handwriting is on the wall now for daytime dramas. Another show is gone, the Daytime Emmy awards are not on a major network anymore and cut by an hour too boot, and I can't remember the last time the Soap Opera Digest award show was aired. I wonder how long DOOL with stay on the air since it is the only one left on NBC.

[@ACcountryFan]

I looked over the ratings. I assume the overall rating is a combination of men and women viewers. I've never understood how they do the ratings and how they can tell if a man or woman is watching the show or not but according to the ratings during one week last month GL had a rating of 1.4/4 which I assume means 1.4 million viewers? In the rating column for "women" during that same week it shows 0.6/4 which I assume means 600,000? Are they saying more men than women watched the show?

[@Nigelsmom2136]

What they did to that show at the end was a travesty.

[@ACcountryFan]

so, if I have the ratings correct, GL was canceled because of a few hundred thousand since every show from #3 to #8 had viewers estimated at 1 million!? When you look at it from that perspective and take into consideration that the soaps ranked from #3 to #8 were all in the 1.7 to 1.4 range, to cancel a show because it ranked 1.4 and not 1.5 is kind of nit-picky. Anyway...given that all the soaps, excluding the top 2, fail to attract more than 2 million viewers, all of them look to be doomed.

[@katie9918]

So people shouldn't be working to support their families during the day? The Nielson system has been obsolete since VCRs started becoming widespread. You can't blame viewers for choosing to put food in their families' mouths and clothes on their children's backs over a TV show, for crying out loud.

[@mjguz]

Hell with CBS.

[@whateverheather655]

When they start bringing in the gay story lines thats when the decline started and just a couple of years later it was over !!

[@alwaysGLfan]

i miss GL and stopped watching all of cbs shows i hope their damn game show flops.bring back Guiding Light always Reva and Josh

[@sertorrhenclegane]

I'm going out on a limb and say something to the viewers of soaps. Part of the reasons why the shows are being cancelled is because people are not watching. The reason, of course, is that the quality of storylines are bad. However, if you loved it like you said you did, you would suffer through it. Part of the blame, lies on you almost as much as the networks and slipshod writing. Just a thought.

[@ilovebeinagirl]

Well, that's a pretty stupid comment. So, in choosing to watch entertainment, which should be a thing that brings joy after a stressful, hectic day at work, we should "suffer" through bad writing and plotholes to keep a show on the air? And where do you get this view that people don't watch shows because they think they can 'blackmail" the writers to turn out better scripts b/c they don't watch? maybe they stop watching because life is short, and they prefer to do better things than watch Reva's clone, or Annie drug Josh with deodorant. I mourn GLs absence because of all the stories that could have been that never will be, but nope if it came back on tomorrow I probably wouldn't watch it. Most people mourn what GL was and will never get a chance to be, and you can do that AND still choose to not watch a show when its quality declines.