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How to Watch The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful in 2026

2026-09-07 · Soap Guide · Updated Sept. 7, 9:10 a.m. ET · By the Soap On Air desk
How to Watch The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful in 2026
ZoneThe Young and the RestlessThe Bold and the Beautiful
Eastern12:30 p.m.1:30 p.m.
Central11:30 a.m.12:30 p.m.
Mountain11:30 a.m.12:30 p.m.
Pacific12:30 p.m.1:30 p.m.

Both are on CBS, weekdays, back to back. Y&R runs an hour and B&B runs a half hour, which is why the pair covers 12:30 to 2 p.m. on the East Coast and finishes before General Hospital starts on ABC.

A living room with a wall clock beside a switched-off television

Why does Pacific get the same clock time as Eastern?

CBS feeds daytime to the West Coast on a delay, so 12:30 p.m. in New York is also 12:30 p.m. in Los Angeles. The Central and Mountain zones are the ones that shift an hour earlier.

Local stations can still move things for news or sports, so the safest check is your own CBS affiliate's grid rather than a national listing.

Where do the episodes stream, and how fast?

CBS daytime soap air times and streaming at a glance
The CBS daytime block, start to finish.

How long do episodes stay available?

Paramount+ keeps a rolling window of recent episodes rather than the full archive, so a month away can mean a gap you cannot fill from the app. Older stretches show up as seasons on the service at intervals, but not reliably.

If you are behind by more than a week or two, the practical catch-up route is reading the daily posts in order — that is what the Y&R section and the B&B section are for.

How many episodes a year do these shows actually make?

Roughly one per weekday, and the numbering makes it easy to check. TVmaze lists Monday, September 7, 2026 as Season 2026, Episode 174 of Y&R and Episode 175 of B&B — that is 174 and 175 episodes in about 180 weekdays so far this year.

The gap between the two counts is the holiday encores landing on different days. Neither show takes a summer hiatus, so there is no season finale to wait through and no wrong month to start.

Production numbers run separately and much higher: Monday's Y&R is production episode #13458, and B&B is #9859. Those are the counts since 1973 and 1987 respectively, and they are what spoiler columns quote when they need to be precise about which hour they mean.

What happens on holidays and during breaking news?

CBS tends to keep the soaps new on minor holidays. Labor Day 2026 was a good example: both CBS soaps aired new episodes on Monday, September 7, while ABC ran an encore of General Hospital.

Bigger interruptions are usually news coverage or sports overruns, and they hit affiliate by affiliate rather than nationally. A pre-empted episode normally moves to overnight or straight to streaming.

The same logic on the ABC side is broken down in why isn't General Hospital on today.

Which one should you start with?

Y&R is the denser show: more families, longer memories, business feuds that run for years. Genoa City rewards patience.

B&B is a half hour and mostly one industry — fashion — and one extended family, so the entry cost is lower. If you have twenty-two minutes and no history with either, start there.

👉 Pick one and watch a full week. Soaps read as slow on any single day and fast across five.

How do you tell what airs tomorrow?

Network listings post a day or two ahead, and spoiler columns run a week ahead. We publish a preview for each show before air time and, for GH, a recap after it.

Start with today: Y&R spoilers for Monday, Sept. 7 and B&B spoilers for Monday, Sept. 7. If GH is what brought you here, the GH viewing guide covers the ABC side, and all of them live under our viewing guides.

FAQ

What time is The Young and the Restless on today? 12:30 p.m. ET / 11:30 a.m. CT on CBS, weekdays.

What time is The Bold and the Beautiful on? 1:30 p.m. ET / 12:30 p.m. CT on CBS, right after Y&R.

Can I watch Y&R and B&B without cable? Yes — next day on Paramount+ or the CBS app on any plan, or live with Paramount+ Premium.

Are new episodes made all year? Both run new episodes year round, with encores mostly around major holidays.

Which airs first? Y&R opens the block; B&B follows an hour later.

Air times are from CBS's own listings and TVmaze; streaming terms are from Paramount+. Times move for local news and sports, so treat your affiliate's grid as the final word.

Sources

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