Emmerdale

ITV has never published a rate card, and Corrie's cast contracts are private. What exists is a decade of press reporting, one Wikipedia-documented correction from William Roache, and a set of contract changes ITV has confirmed in writing.

Betsy Swain turned up on the cobbles in June 2024 as an unnamed friend of Sabrina Adetiba, was quickly revealed as DS Lisa Swain's daughter, and blackmailed Carla Connor into giving her a factory job within weeks. Played by Sydney-Leigh Martin, she has since been written into almost every disaster ITV can arrange. 2026 has been the busiest year yet.

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.

Three different actresses, one of the most famous soap deaths in British TV history in her backstory, and a bloodline running straight through the Mitchell family — yet Courtney Mitchell hasn't set foot in Albert Square in nearly a decade.

If you've settled down for Corrie recently and felt it was over rather quickly — you're not imagining it. Since January 2026, the programme runs half an hour a night instead of a full hour.

For a few weeks this summer, something old-fashioned happened on ITV: hour-long episodes of Coronation Street. The 2026 World Cup tore up the schedule, the soap stretched back to 60 minutes on the nights it did air — and plenty of viewers decided they preferred it.

Settle in, because the number is genuinely absurd — Coronation Street has been on air since 9 December 1960, and it has never stopped.

Coronation Street has been on air under fifteen different British prime ministers, which is one way of measuring it.

Two of British TV's oldest soaps, one hour of television, one very bad night on a Yorkshire road. After decades of politely ignoring each other, Coronation Street and Emmerdale finally collided — literally. Here's what "Corriedale" was, what happened in it, and why ITV did it.

Coronation Street has been running since 9 December 1960.

If it feels like Weatherfield has been haemorrhaging residents lately, that's because it has.

A familiar face from Doctor Who steps into the role of Heimdall in Prime Video’s much-anticipated God of War adaptation. Discover what this means for the Norse-inspired epic.