How long has Coronation Street been running? The full timeline of TV's longest-running soap
Coronation Street has been on air under fifteen different British prime ministers, which is one way of measuring it.
The more precise answer: the ITV soap first broadcast on 9 December 1960, meaning it has now been running for over 65 years — more than 11,000 episodes of life on the cobbles, and a Guinness World Record as the longest-running television soap opera on the planet.
Nobody saw that coming in 1960. Least of all Granada.
From 13 episodes to 65 years
The show was created by a 23-year-old scriptwriter named Tony Warren, who pitched Granada Television a drama about ordinary working-class life on a fictional Salford street. His original pitch described the world he wanted to capture as:
"a fascinating freemasonry, a volume of unwritten rules"
Granada commissioned an initial run of just 13 episodes, and early reviews predicted a quick death. Instead, it became the most-watched programme in Britain within a year.
The full timeline
- 9 December 1960 — the first episode airs, broadcast live from Granada's Manchester studios. William Roache appears as Ken Barlow from scene one.
- 1961 — fully networked across the ITV regions, and straight to the top of the ratings.
- 1969 — the Street goes colour.
- 1989 — a third weekly episode is added; the modern multi-night pattern begins.
- 9 December 2010 — the 50th anniversary is marked with a partly live episode and the infamous tram crash. The same year, Guinness certifies it the world's longest-running TV soap, after the US serial Guiding Light ended its 57-year television run in 2009.
- 7 February 2020 — episode 10,000 airs, months before a pandemic-era 60th anniversary.
- December 2025 — 65 years on air.
- 2026 — ITV trims the schedule to five half-hour episodes a week, sharing a nightly hour with Emmerdale.
The record within the record
William Roache has played Ken Barlow continuously since that very first 1960 episode — a Guinness World Record of his own as the world's longest-serving soap actor. Ken has now been standing on the same street for longer than most of the audience has been alive.
For the record: Coronation Street is the longest-running soap on television. Radio is another matter — BBC Radio 4's The Archers has been going since 1951, and shows no more sign of stopping than the Rovers Return does.