Guiding Light

When the show debuted on radio in 1937, it centered on Reverend John Ruthledge and people whose lives revolved around him. The "Guiding Light" in the show's title originally referred to the lamp in Ruthledge's study that people used as a sign for them to find his help when needed.^[4] When the show transitioned to television in the 1950s, the Bauers, a German immigrant family first introduced in 1948, became the focus of the program.^[5] Other core families were introduced over the show's run, including the Norrises in the 1960s; the Marlers and the Spauldings in the 1970s; and the Coopers, the Lewises, and the Reardons in the 1980s.


Guiding Light was created by Irna Phillips and Emmons Carlson and began as an NBC Radio serial on January 25, 1937. On June 2, 1947, the series was transferred to CBS Radio,^[6] before starting on June 30, 1952, on CBS Television.^[7] It continued to be broadcast on radio until June 29, 1956.^[8] The series was expanded from 15 minutes to a half-hour during 1968 (and also switched from broadcasting live to pre-taping around this same time), and then to a full hour on November 7, 1977. The series broadcast its 15,000th CBS television episode on September 6, 2006.^[9]


On April 1, 2009, CBS announced that it would be canceling Guiding Light after a run of 72 years (15 on radio and 57 on television) due to low ratings. The show taped its final scenes on August 11, 2009, and its final episode on the network aired on September 18, 2009.^[10][11] Reruns of The Price Is Right took over the Guiding Light time slot between September 21 and October 2, 2009, for two weeks. On October 5, 2009, CBS replaced Guiding Light with an hour-long revival of Let's Make a Deal, hosted by Wayne Brady.

Broadcast history in Canada[edit]

In Canada, Guiding Light was available to viewers directly through CBS-TV network affiliates from border cities or cable TV feeds until the show's ending in 2009. In addition, Guiding Light was also aired on several Canadian television networks through the 1980s up until its last air date.


Atlantic Satellite Network (ASN) – a supplementary service to its ATV system of CTV affiliates exclusively for Atlantic Canada – aired the soap simultaneously with the CBS feed from 1983 to 1984; then, the broadcast was moved to 12 noon until 1985.


The show also aired in French in Quebec. TVA, a Quebec privately owned French-language television network, rebroadcast episodes in French translation, twelve months behind, for a short period in 1984.


In the late 1980s into the early 1990s, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) briefly aired the P&G serial nationally at 3:00 p.m. in each specific local Canadian time zone. The CBC Television broadcast of Guiding Light was also on its scheduled during the latter part of the 1960s during the serial 15-minute format. On both occasions, the daytime drama was only aired for a few seasons.


After a hiatus from Canadian television stations for many years, the series came back on CHCH-TV, exclusively for the Ontario market. In September 2007, Global picked up the show nationwide after CHCH-TV dropped it, claiming the Passions former time slot. Guiding Light returned to CHCH for the rest of its run when Global decided to air the 2008 TV series The Doctors.