February saw the last episode for As The World Turns in the Netherlands. As fans mourned their loss, I was interviewed by Nos Op 3 (short news for young people on the public broadcaster) to give my expert opinion. The item (starts 8:10) can be viewed here. The aired clip contains only fragments of the conducted interview. What can we say about the death of soap opera and mourning fans?

As The World Turns was the world longest running soap opera. The genre is doomed for three reasons. First, soaps were intended to engage a daytime audience, which used to be housewives. When women joined the workforce in the seventies, ratings dropped. Second, soap has high production costs, especially in comparison to contemporary daytime tv which generates revenue by having viewers phone in. Third, viewing practices have changed. Downloading and digital television like Tivo have decreased the need for daytime programming. The demise of soap is thus not due to a decline in popularity of the genre .

Soaps tell stories in a circular way: they never end. The mode of addressing is aimed at generating feelings and compassion, and there is much diversity in the represented characters. As a result, each relationship is approached from multiple perspectives, further encouraging emotional engagement on the couch. The relationship viewers have with such fictional personas is called parasocial interaction [wiki]. The audience gets the feeling of really being friends.

Fans connect with characters in a meaningful way, even though this relationship is one-sided. Hence, it is no surprise fans feel sad when a show is cancelled. They need to go through a process of mourning, in which they should accept their loss. The more intense a relationship, the higher the price. Parasocial interaction tends to be superficial and therefore the mourning period does not last long. Because death unites, fan events are an excellent way to mourn together. Mourning for television is not limited to women, as men’s mass display of emotion during sports games shows.

One of the reasons soaps are popular is their invitation to pass moral judgment: what would you do with a cheating spouse or lying mother? Contemporary drama series have successfully copied this aspect of soaps and we see this element return in shows that are not necessarily coded as feminine, such as The Sopranos and Sons Of Anarchy. These shows also invite the audience to pass moral judgment on their choices.

Soap opera fans thus need not mourn for a long time, but they can engage in new parasocial interaction. The interviewer asked me for a good series tip – a piece that was cut in editing. The show par excellence on moral judgments is Breaking Bad: a high school teacher with cancer starts producing crystal meth to pay for hospital bills. What would you do?