Why has Coronation Street gone downhill? Even the Christmas episode lost to The Weakest Link
Christmas Day is the biggest day in the British soap calendar, and in 2024 Corrie's festive episode — the one that sent Helen Worth's Gail Platt off after 50 years — was beaten by a celebrity quiz show. The Weakest Link pulled around 3 million. Corrie didn't.
That single data point set off a year of "soap in crisis" headlines. The fuller picture involves numbers, exits, and an ITV memo.
The ratings, in context
Corrie's Christmas Day audience has been sliding for a quarter of a century: 14.6 million in 2000, 10.8 million in 2011, 7 million in 2017, and under 3 million in 2024. That's less than 10% of its 1987 peak. Everyday episodes tell the same story — 20 million-plus in the 1980s and 90s, roughly seven to eight million now including catch-up.
Not a Corrie-specific problem, mind. EastEnders managed 3.98 million on the same Christmas Day.
The cast exodus
2025 was heavy on departures. Sue Cleaver (Eileen Grimshaw), Colson Smith (Craig Tinker), and Charlotte Jordan (Daisy Midgeley) all announced exits, with Shelley King (Yasmeen Nazir) and Sue Devaney (Debbie Webster) also leaving the cobbles. Worth's exit the previous Christmas removed five decades of continuity in one episode. Reports of a "cash crisis" at the production ran alongside all of it.
Then ITV cut the schedule
On 4 February 2025, ITV announced that from January 2026 Corrie and Emmerdale would move to half-hour episodes five nights a week, back-to-back in an 8pm–9pm "soap power hour". Corrie went from three hour-long episodes to five half-hours — a net loss of 30 minutes a week, and a drop from six episodes to five.
"The new commissioning pattern is viewer-led," said ITV's Kevin Lygo, adding that the change creates headroom in the programme budget.
The Writers' Guild of Great Britain called it a blow to continuing drama, citing the axing of BBC's Doctors and cuts to Hollyoaks. Equity said ITV had assured them cast pay and contracts wouldn't be affected, while noting fewer episodes means fewer jobs for guest and supporting artists.
The counter-argument
ITV's numbers point the other way. Streaming on ITVX rose 30% in 2025, passing half a billion soap streams for the first time. The Corriedale crossover that launched the new schedule on 5 January 2026 peaked at 4.7 million and averaged 4.2 million across the hour. Combined weekly reach for the two soaps sits above 8 million.
Fan reaction to the power hour has mostly split over the later start time rather than the shows themselves.
For the record: Corrie started on two episodes a week in 1960, went to three in 1989, four in 1996, five in 2002, and six in 2017. The 2026 schedule takes it back to five — roughly where it stood 24 years ago.