<P> The Young and the Restless ( often abbreviated as Y&R ) is an American television soap opera created by William J. Bell and Lee Phillip Bell for CBS . The show is set in a fictional Wisconsin town called Genoa City , which is unlike and unrelated to the real life village of the same name , Genoa City , Wisconsin . First broadcast on March 26 , 1973 , The Young and the Restless was originally broadcast as half - hour episodes , five times a week . The show expanded to one - hour episodes on February 4 , 1980 . In 2006 , the series began airing encore episodes weeknights on SOAPnet until 2013 , when Y&R moved to TVGN ( now Pop ) . Pop still airs the encore episodes on weeknights , starting July 1 , 2013 . The series is also syndicated internationally . </P>
when was the young and the restless first aired
March 26 , 1973