The Young and the Restless Fan Page

The Young and the Restless is an American television soap opera, first broadcast on CBS on March 26, 1973. It was created by William J. Bell and Lee Phillip Bell, who set their show in a fictional version of Genoa City, Wisconsin, a town near their annual vacation home in Lake Geneva.

The soap opera is one of the very few TV shows to successfully write out their original cast, and to replace them with new ones. When it debuted, The Young and the Restless originally focused on the personal and professional lives of two core families in Genoa City: the wealthy Brooks family and the poor Foster family. After a series of recasts and departures in the early 1980s, most of the original characters were written out and the show shifted to the rivalry between the Abbotts and the Newmans. Other families such as the Williams, the Winters, and the Fisher/Baldwins were also introduced through the years. However, one basic plot that has run throughout almost all of the show's history is the feud between Jill Foster Abbott and Katherine Chancellor, one of the longest rivalries on any American soap opera.

The series was originally broadcast as half-hour episodes, five times a week. It was expanded to one-hour episodes on February 4, 1980. The Young and the Restless is currently the highest-rated daytime drama on American television. As of 2008, it has appeared at the top of the weekly Nielsen Ratings in that category for more than 1000 weeks since 1988.

The Young and the Restless also airs on SOAPnet weeknights at 7PM ET/PT and is syndicated internationally.

The Young and the Restless has won seven Daytime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Drama Series.