The show did not profit from the large lead-in that the high-rated
Another World provided, mostly due to its many attempts to be socially relevant, which usually took the place of traditional storytelling to which American soap viewers at the time were acclimated.
How to Survive a Marriage ran a distant third in the 3:30 p.m. timeslot, behind
Match Game 74 on
CBS (then daytime TV's highest-rated program) and
One Life to Live on
ABC; a move to 1:30 p.m. on January 6, 1975 after the cancellation of the original version of the famed game
Jeopardy! (it was done to enable
Another World to expand to an hour) only brought worse ratings, as it faced two longtime favorites on the competing networks, CBS'
As the World Turns and ABC's ''
Let's Make a Deal.'' Despite NBC's high hopes for
How to Survive a Marriage it would only last on the air for sixteen months, ending on a Thursday (the 1:30–3:00 p.m. block on NBC was preempted the following day for a 90-minute special, ''First Ladies' Diaries: Rachel Jackson
). The following Monday, April 21, 1975, Days of Our Lives'' expanded to an hour and assumed the vacant half hour left in NBC's daytime schedule.
How to Survive a Marriage thus holds a rather dubious distinction as not only the first soap opera to become a victim of the first daytime serial, its sister NBC soap
Another World, expanding to a full hour, but the second one as well,
Days of Our Lives. Numerous other existing serials on ABC and CBS would expand to 60 minutes daily over the next five years or so, cutting down on the number of open 30-minute timeslots available, meaning few if any serials could be launched. This was a strategy employed to minimize risks of new 30-minute shows like
How to Survive a Marriage failing to develop an audience in a timely enough manner to suit the networks and advertisers. Several other serials had been canceled over the previous several years due to that issue, including its two predecessors,
Bright Promise and
Return to Peyton Place. However ABC was later successful with ''
Ryan's Hope, Loving, as well as The Edge of Night (which moved to ABC after being cancelled by CBS to allow As the World Turns'' to expand to an hour in December 1975). All three shows held their own as half hour soaps until they were eventually cancelled. However, both ABC & NBC aired new half hour soaps in the 90's like NBC's show
Generations lasted two years (1989–1991) before being canceled. ABC's
Loving spin-off
The City which aired from (1995–1997). Being replaced by the
General Hospital spin-off
Port Charles which fared better, lasting six years from (1997–2003).
CBS however was successful with
The Bold and the Beautiful which is still airing today as the only remaining half-hour soap on daytime television airing 38 years. ==Cast==