"We Invented the Soap Opera": 130 Years of Brands Making Their Own Media
Brand-made entertainment isn't a new idea. It's the original one. For 130 years the most durable companies built media before they built campaigns, then gave it away to the networks. Every force that took it from them has now reversed.
In 1933, Procter & Gamble began producing serialized radio dramas, not to win awards, but to sell soap. By 1939 it was running 21 shows at once. The genre was named after the product: the soap opera. Guiding Light ran for 72 years.
The pattern is 130 years old
- 1895: John Deere launches The Furrow, a farming magazine still published today.
- 1900: Michelin prints a free restaurant guide for drivers. It now defines global dining.
- 1938: De Beers builds the diamond engagement tradition most people assume is centuries old, and with it a $90B+ industry.
- 1955: Advertisers produce one-third of all U.S. television.
These weren't campaigns. They were institutions.
The great inversion
By 1970, advertisers made less than 3% of American television. The quiz-show scandals brought in regulators, the networks seized creative control, and production costs rose beyond what brands would carry. Brands went from owning the show to renting 30 seconds inside someone else's. A Super Bowl spot cost $42,000 in 1967. Today it costs about $8M.
Every barrier has reversed
- Three networks controlled distribution. Now YouTube, TikTok and podcasts are free and global.
- Only networks could afford production. Now a phone and an edit suite are broadcast quality.
- Regulators gated sponsor-made TV. Digital platforms have no gatekeepers.
- The 30-second spot reached everyone. Now 80M+ people have cut the cord and about 1.3B block ads.
- Agencies controlled the spend. Now brands own the channel and keep the returns.
P&G is back
In 2025 P&G returned to production with Beyond the Gates on CBS, which lifted its timeslot 48%, and a 55-episode micro-soap across YouTube, TikTok and Instagram. It has said it plans as many as 100 micro-dramas in 2026. Its line: "We invented the soap opera."
This isn't innovation. It's restoration. The companies that remember that first will own the ground everyone else rents.
This article is part of the case laid out in Entertainment Is a Business Driver. Want to see where your own video stands? Take the two-minute video scorecard.
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Founder & Executive Producer
Ryan Harper founded Harper Belmont Media to help executives, brands, and institutions build authority through high-trust video. With over a decade of experience in documentary-style production, Ryan leads HBM's creative vision and client strategy. He believes video is a public operating system—a strategic pillar that compounds trust over time.
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