Post by Admin on Nov 10, 2021 14:23:21 GMT -4
After a run of just under five years, Capitol was broadcast for the last time by CBS on March 20, 1987.
For the first few years after the 1982 debut of Capitol, the Washington, D.C.-set soap was a modest success. Plotlines revolving around the political dynasties presided over by the Clegg and McCandless clans’ matriarchs — played by Carolyn “Morticia Addams” Jones and Constance Towers (later the villainous Helena Cassadine on General Hospital) — landed the new sudser smack in the middle of the ratings.
On June 8, 1981, CBS moved Search for Tomorrow, daytime television's longest-tenured soap and a fixture for nearly 30 years at 12:30 PM/11:30 AM Central, to the 2:30/1:30 PM timeslot between As the World Turns and Guiding Light in order to accommodate the hit serial The Young and the Restless. Procter & Gamble, who owned Search for Tomorrow, urged CBS to return the show to its former slot. The network refused, and when their contract with CBS expired, P&G sold Search for Tomorrow to NBC Daytime and the show premiered there on March 29, 1982. CBS replaced Search for Tomorrow with Capitol in its timeslot, scheduled against the last halves of NBC's Another World and ABC's One Life to Live, the latter of which dominated the ratings at the time.
Capitol debuted on CBS in 1982 in 8th place in the ratings, roughly the same as Search for Tomorrow had done. Capitol remained in the middle of the ratings pack throughout its five-year run ranking between 7th and 9th, with its best ratings points of 6.4 achieved in the 1983-1984 television season, in which it ranked 8th. In 1985, ratings fell slightly from a 5.8 to a 5.1, prompting some CBS affiliates to drop the show. CBS subsequently canceled the show and replaced it with The Bold and the Beautiful on March 23, 1987. However, CBS put The Bold and the Beautiful in the 1:30/12:30 timeslot, bumping As the World Turns to 2/1. The Bold and the Beautiful became both CBS' and America's second-highest rated soap opera, but its ratings never surpassed Capitol's ratings peak.
