📺 Anyone still watching daily soaps or has everyone genuinely moved to web series

My mother still watches her regular evening lineup of daily soaps religiously every single night without fail, genuinely rearranging her entire schedule around specific episode timings the way she has apparently done for years now, while I personally have not watched an actual daily soap myself in what feels like a genuinely long time at this point. Asked her directly why she still prefers the daily soap format specifically over the web series content I keep recommending to her instead, and her answer genuinely surprised me a little, she said the actual daily habit itself, having something reliable to look forward to each specific evening regardless of what else happened that day, matters more to her personally than the actual overall quality or pacing of any individual specific storyline being told. That framing made me reconsider my own fairly dismissive attitude toward the format somewhat honestly, web series certainly offer generally tighter, more efficient storytelling in most cases, but they lack that specific ongoing daily ritual quality that clearly still matters genuinely to a large number of viewers like my own mother personally. A few friends my own age mentioned their own parents follow a genuinely similar specific pattern, sticking loyally with traditional daily soaps despite every single person around them actively recommending web series instead, which suggests this particular generational viewing habit split is honestly fairly widespread rather than just something specific to my own particular family situation. I do still occasionally catch a few minutes of my mother's specific show when visiting, mostly out of simple curiosity, and the sheer, genuinely dramatic intensity of some plot points still manages to catch me off guard every single time I actually happen to watch even briefly, regardless of how many years it has actually been since I last followed one properly myself. Is daily soap viewership actually declining overall the way it often feels like online, or does it simply remain genuinely strong specifically among an older demographic that increasingly does not show up much in most online discussions about television generally these days?

Worked at a production house years ago that still makes daily soaps, and the sheer logistics surprised me, entire scripts written and shot within days of airing each episode. Most web series productions would consider that pace completely unmanageable given how much lead time they typically build in before anything reaches viewers on the actual channel, even now with all the new tools available.

Think this generational split gets framed unfairly online, as though older viewers are somehow behind rather than just valuing something different from what younger viewers want out of a show right now. My grandmother would say the exact same thing about people switching between five shows instead of finishing just one properly, start to end, without ever getting distracted along the way.

My mother watches two serials back to back every evening without fail, and has said more than once that missing either one throws off her whole day in some small way she cannot quite explain properly to anyone else, myself included on most occasions. Web series simply do not offer that same fixed daily anchor in quite the same reliable way for her.