3 Sep 1951: “Search for Tomorrow” begins

On this day in 1951, the long-running soap opera Search for Tomorrow began its run. When it was canceled in 1987, it was the longest-running non-news program in television history.

Search for Tomorrow ran for 9,130 episodes. Its theme for most of its run was a muted organ solo, sounding a bit like background music at a funeral.

Its record was eclipsed the following year by Guiding Light; when that show was canceled in 2009, it had been on television for 57 years. As the World Turns, canceled in 2010, was just three years short of that mark.

The longest continuously broadcast show on any medium is Music & the Spoken Word, a religious show featuring the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. It has been hosted by KSL in Salt Lake City since 1929.

There are four daytime soap operas still in production:

• General Hospital (first broadcast in 1963)
• Days of Our Lives (1965)
• The Young and the Restless (1973)
• The Bold and the Beautiful (1987)

Image: screencap from a 1967 promo uploaded to YouTube.