where did the name "soap opera" come from?

Answer 1

This was on the television show Apprentice last night. When "soap operas" started out, as radio shows, they were sponsored by soap companies. Thus the term soap opera.

Answer 2

Soap opera" is an American term used to describe a popular genre radio or television series, which has domestic and/or melodramatic themes. It originated in the 1930s.

Here are some online references:

"The term "soap opera" was coined by the American press in the 1930s to denote the extraordinarily popular genre of serialized domestic radio dramas, which, by 1940, represented some 90% of all commercially-sponsored daytime broadcast hours. The "soap" in soap opera alluded to their sponsorship by manufacturers of household cleaning products; while "opera" suggested an ironic incongruity between the domestic narrative concerns of the daytime serial and the most elevated of dramatic forms."
Source: The Museum of Broadcast Communications: Soap Opera

and

"The expression soap opera refers to a radio or television series depicting the interconnected lives of many characters often in a sentimental, melodramatic way. It is also used figuratively to refer to a real-life situation that resembles the stories on soap operas, and to anything having sentimentality or melodrama.

A soap opera is so called for the less-than-thrilling reason that soap manufacturers were prominent initial sponsors of such programs."
Source: Random House: The Mavens' Word of the Day

All websites last accessed 9th June, 2006.

Answer 3

The shows were originally sponsored by consumer product companies (including soap companies) as a form of advertising. And they had a lot of drama, like an opera. Hence soap operas.

Answer 4

I was taught that they are called soap opera because just like soaps form many bubbles, the soap operas tell many stories at once. WHO KNOWS?

Answer 5

the term was derived from the shows' sponsors: soaps, laundry detergents, floor cleaners we seem to remember a fanciful product named Shimmer: "It's a floor wax AND a dessert topping!" Because these serials were so full of histrionic melodrama, they were dubbed soap "operas," though they clearly are not operas

Answer 6

the were sponsored by soap comapines, and had commercials for soaps. because the soap compaines demographoc was the women who stayed at home.

Answer 7

Most of these "women's stories" were sponsored by soap and detergent companies

Answer 8

cheese and fries