1. Less woman stay at home these days
2. Many people "tape" their soaps and watch them later which until recently was not counted in the Nielson ratings
3. More channels to select from during the day. It used to be you only had a couple stations to choice from, now you can watch History, science, lifetime, etc.
4. It is much cheaper to create a talk show or game show, which can draw in just as big of an audience these days. For some reason we are obsessed with people real messed up lives. So why not replace a soap with a show that is MUCH cheaper to produce.
5. Budget cuts because of the above 4 reasons have made soaps lose viewers. They can’t keep all the expensive actors and actresses, they have less and not as good writers, and sets and other things are not as good.
These are just some of the reasons I can think of, but I am sure others can think of more.