For Soap Awards, a Nighttime ‘Days’ : Television: The special ‘Days of Our Lives’ episode will precede the first prime-time Soap Opera Digest Awards broadcast.

No, the television listings aren’t wrong. “Days of Our Lives,” NBC’s long-running daytime soap opera, is airing at 8 tonight.

It’s part of NBC’s prime-time salute to daytime, which continues at 9 p.m. with the first prime-time broadcast of the Soap Opera Digest Awards. The eighth annual ceremony, honoring daytime and prime-time serials in 19 categories as chosen by the magazine’s editors and readers, originates from the Beverly Hilton with hosts George Hamilton, Deidre Hall and Emma Samms.

In scheduling this double-header, NBC is taking a cue from the success of the Daytime Emmy Awards, which in its own first prime-time telecast last June on CBS finished a heady second place in the national Nielsen ratings for that week.

After the decision was made to air the soap awards at night, a broadcast standards representative at NBC proposed the idea of prefacing the ceremony with a regular installment of one of the network’s three soaps.

“The network had done ‘seamless’ programming that had been successful, such as a bad storm that (carried through) one Saturday night on ‘Golden Girls,’ ‘Empty Nest’ and ‘Nurses,’ ” said Susan Lee, NBC vice president of daytime programs. “When the idea was brought to my boss, John Miller, and me, we thought it would be better to produce a special soap episode that would have some of the qualities of episodic television, but be true to its own form. It’s a nice reward for the ‘Days’ people, who do a nice job for us--’Days’ is still the No. 1-testing soap for NBC.”

The one-hour special, titled “Days of Our Lives: One Stormy Night,” focuses on three of the show’s couples as they and other residents of the fictional Salem cope with a deluge that threatens to sink the riverfront town.

Television reporter Jennifer Deveraux (Melissa Reeves) and her estranged husband Jack (Matthew Ashford) find themselves locked in on a game show set, and Dr. Carly Manning (Crystal Chappell) must deal with the storm’s accident victims before rendezvousing with lover Bo Brady (Peter Reckell). John Black (Drake Hogestyn) confronts a mysterious young woman as Isabella Toscano (Staci Greason), pregnant with his child, drives alone in the rain.

The script was written to pick up the action from this afternoon’s regular broadcast, yet be understandable to viewers unfamiliar with the show. But why would anyone other than a “Days” devotee bother to tune in?

“Hopefully, the promotional campaign on NBC will titillate them to sample the show,” said “Days” executive producer Ken Corday. “Those who don’t know the show will be able to get a hook on it by the first act. And with our 26-year history, maybe we’ll get people to watch who used to watch it when they were in school.”

Added Lee: “It will be a soap opera audience that night anyway. So if you like ‘All My Children’ and you hear that ‘Days’ is not competing with ‘All My Children’ because it’s on at night, we’d love you to tune in and say: ‘This is kind of interesting. Maybe I’ll tape ‘Days’ (in the daytime).’ There will be a cliffhanger, so we hope they’ll tune in Monday.”

The “Days” company encountered some minor differences in doing the nighttime edition, such as a two-day taping schedule rather than the customary one-day one, a slightly longer running time and more cameras to capture the action. The actors, if a bit more nervous, used essentially the same approach, according to co-star Matthew Ashford.

Ironically, though, the very network department that suggested the prime-time soap telecast provided the biggest hurdles, he said.

“We had censors jumping all over us,” Ashford said. “There are things we can do in daytime that we can’t at night from 8 to 9 o’clock. (Supervising executive producer and episode director) Al Rabin said that he had to go through the script page by page and change things, which he’d never had to do before.

“In the script, when Jack and Jennifer were stuck on the game show set, we found questions there like, ‘Where does a woman like to be touched during lovemaking?’ I was supposed to say to her, ‘Think back. . . . Think front.’ But I couldn’t say it. Nighttime has rigid controls. You can’t be shown kissing on a bed, but in the same time period people are getting shot and beaten up.”

Actually, Lee said: “You can kiss on a bed, you just can’t be naked kissing on a bed, on top of each other. At that time, you’re dealing with family viewing, with a lot of children watching, and broadcast standards would prefer that love scenes are rare. The ‘Days’ people were very cooperative.”

But the Soap Opera Digest Awards show that follows will include a roundup of clips, introduced by Marla Maples, from soapdom love stories. There also will be clips packages saluting weddings, presented by Regis Philbin and Kathie Lee Gifford, and death scenes, introduced by Geraldo Rivera.

The awards will be presented by cast members from most of the daytime and prime-time serials, and also by non-soapers such as Jackee and Kelsey Grammer.

“We take the soaps seriously, respect their contributions and also gently poke fun,” said Lynn Leahey, Soap Opera Digest editor-in-chief. “People in soaps work so hard, but they’re underappreciated. This is their night--we’re recognizing a really valuable contribution to television.”

If Nielsen lightning strikes twice, there may be another prime-time “Days of Our Lives” segment, perhaps in June. If not, the cast will take it in stride, Ashford said. “There was a lot of joking around during the taping,” he said. “We kept telling each other, ‘Don’t quit your day job.’ ”