Port Richard

Port Richard is an Mantralian television soap opera. It was first broadcast on NBT on 4 March 1968 and has since run for more than 11,000 episodes, making it the longest-running soap opera on Mantralian television and the longest-running scripted Mantralian television show.

The series takes place in the namesake Port Richard, a fictional London city. Since the early 1980s, the show's storylines mostly revolved around the Bryce and Webster families. The series saw a rise in ratings in the mid-1980s thanks to the "" Steven and Sandra, whose 1988 wedding brought in 28 million viewers and remains the most-watched hour in Mantralian soap opera history.

The series was created by screenwriter Peter Hutch and is produced by NBT Media. The show is filmed at The Village Studios in Bluechester, New Ontario. Gordon Sears has played Charles Ralph since 1974, making him the soap opera's longest-running cast member. NBT began broadcasting Port Richard in high-definition on 2 February 2009.

Port Richard has been met with positive reception. It won the MAFT Award for Best Soap Opera in 2004. In 2010, it was listed as #4 on Cocoblue's "Top 20 Best Television Shows of the 2000s".

Conception
Port Richard co-creator Mark Hutch got the idea for the show in 1967, when he thought about making a soap opera that would revolve around. Former star Anna Rice stated in a 2014 interview, "[Mark] Hutch wanted a soap that would be about the middle class. [He] thought it would make an interesting show."

Production staff

 * Executive producer: Gordon Hampton
 * Head writer: Stanford F. Rogers
 * Casting director: Logan Mindel