The writing team of “The Young and the Restless” took home the 2025 Writers Guild Award for Daytime Drama during Saturday night’s Writers Guild Awards ceremony held at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles and the Edison Ballroom in New York City with actress Justine Lupe (“Nobody Wants This,” “Succession”) presenting.
The Writers Guild Awards is an annual awards show recognizing achievements in screenwriting, television, streaming, news, radio/audio, and promotional writing during the previous calendar year (2024).
Writers Dave Ryan and Madeleine Phillips accepted the award in person at the Los Angeles ceremony on behalf of the show’s writing team, led by head writer Amanda L. Beall and writers Susan Banks, Jeff Beldner, Marin Gazzaniga, Lindsay Harrison, Marla Kanelos, Rebecca McCarty, Phillips and Ryan.
In a speech, Ryan said, “We’re thrilled to accept this award on behalf of our writing team at ‘The Young and the Restless.’” He added, “Thank you to the guild for this honor. Also, we want to thank our team at CBS, Sony, the Bells and the amazing cast and crew led by our showrunner, Josh Griffith*, who bring 255 episodes to life each year.”
YouTube
Added Phillips: “And, we want to say to our colleagues at ‘Beyond the Gates,’ which is a new soap opera starting in a couple of weeks, we welcome you to daytime. We’re so happy you’re here and we look forward to seeing you here next year. Thank you, so, so much.”
Highlighted clips from submitted episodes preceding the win included scenes of Sharon (Sharon Case) confronting Cameron (Linden Ashby) while Nicholas (Joshua Morrow) tried to calm her, and a May 2024 episode in which Jack (Peter Bergman) doing everything he can, including taking pills to get a distraught Nikki (Melody Thomas Scott) the help she needs.
The last time “The Young and the Restless” took home the coveted award was in 2020, representing the calendar year 2019. This win also marks the seventh time since the category’s creation in 1973 (representing content written in 1972) that the daytime drama series has taken home the award. The show also won in 2003 (calendar year 2002), 2006 (calendar year 2005), 2008 (calendar year 2007), 2010 (calendar year 2009) and 2013 (calendar year 2012).
“The Young and the Restless” beat out “Days of our Lives” and “General Hospital,” the other two nominees in the category. “Days of our Lives” took home the award for the last four consecutive years, while “The Bold and the Beautiful” did not submit itself for contention.
Note*: Due to his going fi-core status during the 2007/2008 writers’ strike, Josh Griffith, the show’s head writer and executive producer, is ineligible for a WGA nomination (see story).
