How the Daytime Soap Opera Took Over Prestige Television Daytime soaps, unfairly maligned for too long, might seem in danger of extinction. But prime-time prestige television has absorbed their DNA.

NBC's longest-running soap Days Of Our Lives has been a ratings winner in the 56 years it's been on air, and focuses on the Bradys, the Hortons and other families in the fictional city of Salem.