‘Bold & The Beautiful’ Tops Soap Opera Demo For First Time After 32 Years On Air

Dominic Patten

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In today’s fast-paced and often cutthroat industry, this is a true case of good things come to those who wait … and really wait.

After more than 8,100 episodes and 32 years on the air, The Bold and the Beautiful finally snared first place in the key soap opera demographic. For the week ending August 9, the CBS daytimer hit a 0.9 among women 25-54, beating longtime No. 1 and sister show The Young and the Restless‘ 0.8 result.

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In actually sheer audience, that’s 530,000 for B&B to 507,000 for Y&R.

To make matters just that little bit sweeter for the constant cliffhanger created by William J. Bell and Lee Philip Bell, B&B also came in first place among women 18-49 for the second week in a row. After topping that secondary soap demo for the first time in its long run during the week ending on August 2, the LA-set series rose to 334,000 in the 18-49 demo, according to Nielsen. While both shows landed with a 0.5 rating, B&B had a 6% better demo viewership than usual winner Y&R – not a giant leap ahead, but a win is still a win no matter the margin.

Domestically, B&B has settled into a solid second place to Y&R, which the Bells also created. The 2018-19 season saw The Young and the Restless get 3.1 rating to The Bold and the Beautiful‘s 2.5. ABC’s 56-year old General Hospital was next with a 1.7, and NBC’s Days of Our Lives close behind with a 1.6

Globally, however, the saga of the fashion-centric Forrester family actually is No. 1 when it comes to total sets of eyeballs, with an estimated audience of over 27 million. Of course, back here in the States, soap opera viewership has been on the decline over the past two decades as viewers expand their choices into the vastly shifting environment of more platforms and more options, such as DVRs.

Yet, with that, The Bold & the Beautiful pulled in 3.38 million viewers last week on the soon-to-be Viacom-merged CBS. That’s the best the show has done since April. Perhaps most importantly in this era of overall decline in daytime and primetime, that week of August 9 viewership matches B&B’s result of the comparable week in 2018.

Bold & just a bit beautiful certainly.

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