# List of television programs by episode count
A list of television programs by episode count ranks series by the total number of episodes broadcast, rather than by years on air or seasons completed. The two measures diverge sharply: a weekday soap opera can accumulate more episodes in a decade than a weekly prime-time drama does in half a century, so the top of an episode-count list is dominated by daily and near-daily programming.
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Longest-running TV show (Guinness) | Meet the Press (NBC, USA), first transmitted 6 November 1947 and weekly since 12 September 1948; 2,763 shows as of 20 April 2003[1](https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/66905-longest-running-tv-show) |
| Most episodes, soap opera | General Hospital (ABC, 1963–present), 16,066 episodes counted to 14 October 2026[2](https://rlist.io/posts/longest-running-soap-operas) |
| Record change | General Hospital took the soap episode record from Guiding Light in July 2025 and passed 16,000 episodes on 13 July 2026[2](https://rlist.io/posts/longest-running-soap-operas) |
| Guiding Light total | 15,762 television episodes (1952–2009); roughly 2,500 earlier radio episodes are excluded[2](https://rlist.io/posts/longest-running-soap-operas) |
| Longest-running TV soap by longevity | Coronation Street (ITV, first broadcast 1960), recognized by Guinness World Records; 11,682 episodes by the end of September 2025[3](https://www.itv.com/presscentre/sites/default/files/2025-09/70_years_of_making_what_matters.pdf) |
| Longest-running TV comedy series | Last of the Summer Wine (BBC), first broadcast 12 November 1973; the series ran for 295 episodes, with the final episode airing on 29 August 2010[4](https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/66917-longest-running-tv-comedy-series) • [7](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2010/aug/29/last-of-the-summer-wine-ends) |
| Animation benchmark | Sazae-san (Japan) has run since 1969 with over 7,000 episodes[5](https://old.fasciaguide.com/expl/longest-running-tv-shows-which-series-top-the-charts) |
| Prime-time benchmark | The Simpsons, the longest-running non-news prime-time show, had 808 episodes as of July 2026[6](https://www.cinemablend.com/television/just-found-out-insane-milestone-number-episodes-general-hospital-hitting-16000) |
## What the list measures
Episode count and elapsed run are different records. [Meet the Press](https://www.edgepedia.org/meet-the-press) leads on continuous television history, having first aired in 1947, but its weekly schedule left it at around 5,000 episodes by 2026, about 11,000 fewer than [General Hospital](https://www.edgepedia.org/general-hospital)[1](https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/66905-longest-running-tv-show) • [6](https://www.cinemablend.com/television/just-found-out-insane-milestone-number-episodes-general-hospital-hitting-16000). [Coronation Street](https://www.edgepedia.org/coronation-street) is older than General Hospital as a television soap, first airing in 1960, yet sits roughly 5,000 episodes behind it because British soap episodes air less frequently than American weekday installments[3](https://www.itv.com/presscentre/sites/default/files/2025-09/70_years_of_making_what_matters.pdf) • [6](https://www.cinemablend.com/television/just-found-out-insane-milestone-number-episodes-general-hospital-hitting-16000).
[Guinness World Records](https://www.edgepedia.org/guinness-world-records) keeps separate titles rather than one overall ranking: a general "longest running TV show" record, plus records for soaps, animated series, and sitcoms by episode count. Its general record page is a dated claim, reporting 2,763 episodes of Meet the Press as of 20 April 2003, not a current total[1](https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/66905-longest-running-tv-show).
## Leading programs by episode count
**Soap operas** dominate the high end because they air three to five new episodes per week. The leading television soaps by episodes, counted to mid-October 2026, are:[2](https://rlist.io/posts/longest-running-soap-operas)
| Rank | Soap opera | Country | Network | Years on TV | Episodes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | General Hospital | United States | ABC | 1963–present | 16,066 |
| 2 | Guiding Light | United States | CBS | 1952–2009 | 15,762 |
| 3 | Days of Our Lives | United States | NBC, Peacock | 1965–present | 15,487 |
| 4 | As the World Turns | United States | CBS | 1956–2010 | 13,858 |
| 5 | The Young and the Restless | United States | CBS | 1973–present | 13,482 |
| 6 | Coronation Street | United Kingdom | ITV | 1960–present | 11,959 |
| 7 | One Life to Live | United States | ABC, The Online Network | 1968–2013 | 11,136 |
| 8 | All My Children | United States | ABC, The Online Network | 1970–2013 | 10,755 |
| 9 | Emmerdale | United Kingdom | ITV | 1972–present | 10,677 |
| 10 | Barátok közt | Hungary | RTL Klub | 1998–2021 | 10,456 |
Fourteen of the twenty-four soaps on the full list were still on the air and adding episodes weekly at the count date[2](https://rlist.io/posts/longest-running-soap-operas).
**Animation and game shows** supply the other very large totals. Sazae-san, a Japanese anime airing since 1969, exceeds 7,000 episodes, with each weekly broadcast consisting of three separate segments[5](https://old.fasciaguide.com/expl/longest-running-tv-shows-which-series-top-the-charts). In prime-time scripted television the counts are far smaller: [The Simpsons](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-simpsons), the longest-running non-news prime-time show, stood at 808 episodes in July 2026, about 5 percent of General Hospital's total, and the top ten prime-time shows combined amount to roughly a quarter of that total[6](https://www.cinemablend.com/television/just-found-out-insane-milestone-number-episodes-general-hospital-hitting-16000).
## Counting conventions and pitfalls
Several conventions determine where a program lands on such a list, and changing them changes the ranking:
- **Radio years are excluded.** [Guiding Light](https://www.edgepedia.org/guiding-light) began on radio in 1937 and moved to television in 1952; its count of 15,762 covers television episodes only, excluding roughly 2,500 radio episodes[2](https://rlist.io/posts/longest-running-soap-operas).
- **Streaming continuations count.** Continuations released on streaming services are included: these cover [Days of Our Lives](https://www.edgepedia.org/days-of-our-lives) when it moved to Peacock, Neighbours on Prime Video, and the 2013 internet relaunches of [One Life to Live](https://www.edgepedia.org/one-life-to-live) and All My Children[2](https://rlist.io/posts/longest-running-soap-operas).
- **Broadcasters' own numbering is used.** Hour-long British soap episodes count as two because ITV numbers them that way, which inflates UK totals relative to a strict half-hour unit[2](https://rlist.io/posts/longest-running-soap-operas).
- **Non-episodic programming is excluded.** Daily news broadcasts such as The Today Show, Good Morning America, and SportsCenter are not treated as episodic series and do not appear on episode-count lists, even though Meet the Press, also a news program, holds the longevity record[1](https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/66905-longest-running-tv-show).
- **Counts go stale quickly.** Shows adding three to five episodes a week outdate any published figure within days, so totals are meaningful only with their "counted to" date attached[2](https://rlist.io/posts/longest-running-soap-operas).
A further complication is defining the unit of comparison. A "season" barely exists in UK daytime broadcasting, so rankings built on seasons break down for those programs, and studio, streaming-platform, and international-broadcaster episode counts for the same series can differ[5](https://old.fasciaguide.com/expl/longest-running-tv-shows-which-series-top-the-charts). For this reason, careful lists state the metric (episodes, years, or seasons), the scope (television only or radio plus television), and the as-of date alongside every figure.
## References
1. [Longest running TV show, Guinness World Records](https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/66905-longest-running-tv-show)
2. [The Longest-Running Soap Operas by Episodes, RList](https://rlist.io/posts/longest-running-soap-operas)
3. [ITV Press Centre: 70 Years of Making What Matters (Coronation Street episode total)](https://www.itv.com/presscentre/sites/default/files/2025-09/70_years_of_making_what_matters.pdf)
4. [Longest running TV comedy series, Guinness World Records](https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/66917-longest-running-tv-comedy-series)
5. [Longest Running TV Shows: Which Series Top The Charts, FasciaGuide](https://old.fasciaguide.com/expl/longest-running-tv-shows-which-series-top-the-charts)
6. [I Just Found Out The Insane Milestone Number Of Episodes General Hospital Is Hitting, CinemaBlend](https://www.cinemablend.com/television/just-found-out-insane-milestone-number-episodes-general-hospital-hitting-16000)
7. [Last of the Summer Wine final episode airs](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2010/aug/29/last-of-the-summer-wine-ends)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Fictional worlds and series reference apparatus › Adaptation chains, spin-offs, and series awards › Genre and subject indexes for television series*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license