Published: February 5, 2025 — ITV is announcing today that from January 2026, Coronation Street and Emmerdale will move to a new scheduling pattern on ITV1, introducing a soaps power hour from Monday-Friday, with 30 minute Emmerdale episodes at 8pm, and 30 minute Coronation Street episodes at 8.30pm. Episodes will continue to drop at 7am on ITVX, before transmission that evening.
The start of the 2026 schedule will be marked in spectacular style, as both soaps embark on an ambitious, never before seen stunt as part of a week of special episodes.
The new schedule chimes with research insights that show 30 minute episodes attracted higher audiences in 2024, and deliver more digestible installments of continuing drama that better fits with changing viewer habits.
Coronation Street and Emmerdale are the UK’s biggest soaps with a combined weekly reach of over 8 million viewers. Both soaps are in blistering form and have big stunt storylines in February, with an action packed month on the cobbles ahead, which kicked off with the mysterious fire last night at the Platt’s house which threatens to destroy much more than bricks and mortar. Emmerdale will also unleash a heart-stopping storyline, filmed over a series of night shoots, centered on a fateful night that brings two limousines into danger, with one left teetering on a treacherous frozen lake.
The changes ensure that ITV remains the premier home of soap, as the commissioning broadcaster that backs the genre more than anyone else in the market.
As part of the drive to bring the soaps to the biggest possible audiences, however they choose to watch, ITV launched a new dedicated home for soap on ITVX in 2024, and in 2025 will be pledging additional marketing support, with the aim of maintaining Coronation Street and Emmerdale’s leading position into the future.
ITV’s Managing Director of Media and Entertainment Kevin Lygo said:
“The new commissioning pattern is viewer-led. We already give more choice than ever to viewers on how they watch us through ITVX and we want to present their favourite soap to them, in the most digestible way.
“In a world where there is so much competition for viewers’ time and attention, and viewing habits continue to change, we believe this is the right amount of episodes that fans can fit into their viewing schedule, to keep up to date with the shows.
“Research insights also show us that soap viewers are increasingly looking to the soaps for their pacey storytelling. Streaming-friendly, 30 minute episodes better provide the opportunity to meet viewer expectations for storyline pace, pay-off and resolution.
“Whilst viewing is growing on ITVX, we know a significant proportion of our soaps’ audience still watch us via the schedule. This new pattern is in the DNA of the soap genre – nobody else does 30 minute drama this successfully.
“It creates a soap power hour that’s consistent, and easy to find in the linear schedule, for the UK’s biggest soaps.
“This new commissioning pattern will mean five hours of soaps a week, rather than the current six. We are conscious this will have an impact for the people who work on the soaps team. We will support our colleagues in ITV Studios as they work through these changes, and will do what we can to mitigate the impact on our people.
“These changes are motivated by doing what we believe is best for the continuing success of these important programmes in the long term.
“They also create headroom in the overall programme budget for investment in programming that can help ITV grow reach in a very very competitive market.”
-ENDS-
About
Coronation Street currently airs on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 8-9pm. It transmitted twice a week when it started on December 9th 1960. It went to three episodes a week in October 1989 before adding a fourth weekly episode in November 1996. The addition of a fifth episode was in October 2002. A sixth episode of Coronation Street was added in September 2017. Coronation Street moved to three-hour long episodes a week, in March 2022.
Emmerdale currently airs at 7.30pm on weekdays, as half hour episodes, apart from Thursdays when the show runs for one hour. When Emmerdale began in 1972 it started as two days a week, in daytime. The show went from three episodes to five episodes in 2000, and moved from five episodes to six episodes in 2004. Emmerdale’s one, hour long episode of the week has aired on Sundays, Tuesdays and most recently, on Thursdays.
Source
ITV Press Centre
