As the World Turns

As the World Turns (ATWT) is the second longest-running American television soap opera, airing each weekday on CBS.

History of show announcements

From the show's inception until October of 1981, the show's announcer (and the most remembered of all of ATWT's announcers) was Dan McCullough. His voice-overs were utilized as follows:

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• Opening titles--"And now, for the next 30 minutes (or full hour), As The World Turns, brought to you today by..." (the extra words presented live were added after "and now..." when the show went to the color standard in 1967)
• Mid-program break--"The first part of this program has been brought to you today by..." (until at least the late 1960s); "This portion of As The World Turns has been brought to you today by..." (late 1960s until 1981), followed by "We'll continue with As The World Turns following station identification" (inception until at least the mid-1970s); "We'll continue with Part II of As The World Turns in just a moment" (mid-1970s until 1981)
• Lead-in to second half--"And now the second half of As The World Turns..., followed by "...brought to you today by..." on days where the second half is officially sponsored.
• Lead-in to next-to-last commercial break--"We'll continue with As The World Turns in just a moment."
• Closing titles--"This portion of As The World Turns has been brought to you today by..." (on days where the second half is officially sponsored; on days that are not, there would be either no announcement at all or McCullough would invite viewers to "stay tuned" to the next program "on most of these CBS stations").

In 1981, after 25 years with ATWT, McCullough retired from the program and was replaced by a much younger announcer, Dan Region. His announcements were as follows:

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• Opening titles--"As The World Turns. This portion brought to you today by..." (although beginning in the 1990s, Procter & Gamble began to decrease their sponsorship of the program for some days of the week, even though they themselves were the producers. So, on such days, Region would only announce the title of the program right before the first commercial break.)
• Mid-program break: "This portion of As The World Turns has been brought to you today by (name and description of sponsor). We'll continue with Part II of As The World Turns in just a moment."
• Lead-in to second half--either "And now Part II of As The World Turns!", or "And now we continue with Part II of As The World Turns!" (the second half from 1981 forward was, for the most part, not officially sponsored)
• Lead-in to next-to-last commercial break--"We'll continue with As The World Turns in just a moment!"
• Closing credits--"Stay tuned for Capitol (1982 to 1987, or) Guiding Light (1987 to 1999) next on most of these CBS stations."

After the titles were changed again in 1999, for the first time in the series history (for the most part), ATWT had no official announcer or show announcements, however Martin Bookspan (who had taken over as announcer of Guiding Light) still had to announce the sponsor tags on days where the show was sponsored.

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