General Hospital

General Hospital is a British daytime soap opera produced by ATV which ran on ITV from 1972 to 1979. It was modelled after the American drama of the same name. In 1972 ITV started to broadcast programmes on weekday afternoons triggering a new wave of productions to fill out the extended schedules. Among the first of these shows, which were aimed at giving advertisers access to 'stay at home mums' and housewives in general, were the long-running rural soap Emmerdale Farm and the twice-weekly medical drama General Hospital. Set in a fictional Midlands town, the series followed the romantic and... professional lives of its doctors and nurses. While the location and the characters names had been changed, in most other respects General Hospital was almost identical to its predecessor, Emergency - Ward 10, a deliberate attempt to recreate its success. In 1975, after 110 twice-weekly episodes, General Hospital was given a primetime slot on Friday evening. The move saw the episode lengths double from 30 to 60 minutes, with each episode being more self-contained, while on-screen medical procedures, including detailed scenes of surgery, became more prominent.
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