Kevin Lygo is full of it as anyone that remembers his handling of the Big Brother race row on Channel 4 will agree.

I'd really would have thought we would have been getting a reduction of soaps per week, not an increase.

i personally think this is overkill for Corrie, and EE should go back to a Monday, Tues and Thursday week. IMO, ratings would get sustained with less episodes per week.

I know it's a silly random comparison, but Game of Thrones is an example. I doubt they'd be as popular if they had 24 episode seasons. The show is very tough, and 24 episodes is IMO enough to make anyone go into a serious state of depression. Same with Breaking Bad they had a 7-13-13-13-8-8 (last 2 8 episodes were same season but split).

I reckon this is how a lot of shows in the future (not now, maybe 10-15 years time) will go. People don't have the patience for 23-24 episode seasons in the US hence the drops throughout... just like i don't think Corrie can sustain a 6 episode week. I don't think as a human species we have the patience.

Then again, he singled out Countryfile for a six-month break, too, so maybe he wants Sunday soaps.

Get them in position during a Countryfile break, then kick up a fuss if BBC One tries to bring it back.

Sounds like Labour supporters who wanted rid of Milliband and wanted new blood to take over, or indeed people who don't like Cameron as PM...

Lol quoting yourself 😳

I suppose this will put an end to your argument about the soaps having had the same no. of episodes for years when anyone raises the legitimate point that they are on too much.

Just because people were sick of Fincham does not mean they're going to be happy about a dud decision from the new one.

This is total overkill. Corrie is struggling enough as it is and its scheduling is already a mess with the double episodes a pain and restricting the show to a rigid storytelling format that doesn't work anymore and only did when the show was last consistently good about ten years ago. Back then the cliff hangers on a Monday and Friday were decent and you'd look forward to the 8.30 ep.

Don't know how you work that out. The soaps HAVE had the same number of episodes for years. Those who kept suggesting it was an ongoing increase year after year over the last 10 years are still wrong. Just because something has happened doesn't mean it can be backdated to previous discussions.

I meant going forward...

Can't remember the claims that no. of eps were increasing year by year. I thought you said it only in response to claims that there are too many episodes in general. Apologies if I've got that wrong. It's not something I've seen you say recently admittedly so the context might have escaped me.

Well spotted, George.

It's an easy but very lazy decision for another episode of soap.
It will no doubt rate better than what's it's replacing so job done.

I fully expect this episode to be on Sundays, maybe with the Thursday 8pm episode of Emmerdale moving to Sunday at 7pm, followed by Corrie. It would probably help their Sunday schedule a lot.


I can't see EE going more than 4 eps a week on a regular basis. The BBC doesn't need soaps as much as ITV anyway - they are far too reliant on their soaps as shown by this commission of an extra episode of Corrie.

God knows why ITV are introducing a sixth episode of Corrie in 2017. With the soap performing so poorly after Blackburn has all but buried the show into the ground with millions switching off over the last 3 years, this decision seems absolutely crazy!

It's still SB on the credits. When will Kate Oates' name appear?

The only sensible place for this has to be Sunday at 7.30pm - and move the 8pm Emmerdale back to Sunday too to bring some stability back. But knowing ITV, they'll stick it Thursday at 8.30pm.

Emmerdale did well up against EE. 5.7m in June is pretty decent. Obviously helped by the explosion.


Love Island just keeps building. It's been the unexpected ratings gem of the summer. Monday final is a good idea. Should do well.

NO NO NO NO NO!!! Idiots. Why do this when 5 eps a week is already enough. This is going to affect the longer standing cast members and likely to end up making them leave earlier than they might otherwise.

Currently 5 eps a week of Corrie is too much, especially since its a pile of BILE!!

Soaps are already stretched to the limit with so many episodes, this is surely going to affect quality.

I AM NOT HAPPY ABOUT THIS NEWS!!! Terrible, lazy, lazy decision.

Its one of the most idiotic moves ITV have made in their entire extistence. Corrie has just recently dropped to an all time low ratings wise and quality, killed by Blackburn complete incompetance as a producer, and yet lets give it another episode to keep quality low.

ITV don't care about quality, just making money.

It's great news for soap fans in as much as the recent ratings trends for the genre generally haven't been all that encouraging, so committing to a 20% increase in volume for Corrie is a real vote of confidence from ITV.

Personally I would be looking at what the data appears to be suggesting and consider it wiser to be developing strategies whereby the reliance on soaps was less, not more. And whilst things may look far rosier for the genre by the end of 2017, nobody could predict that with any certainty, in the same way few if any would have predicted their superiority over "regular" BBC/ITV programming to be as minimal as is the case currently.

This is Lygo trying to play it as safe as possible in his honourable pursuit of ratings, but failing even to do that, because some serious health warnings exist around Coronation Street at the moment; not least regarding the quality.

ITV's decision regarding Corrie is a poor one. Many episodes have no real substance as it is; especially the double bills. I expect the extra episode will be mostly secondary characters. With the soaps in decline, ITV should be looking to find alternatives, not further relying on soaps in the hope that they pick up.

They must have faith in Kate Oates to turn it around...

Someone once said to me that you only have to look at who are main players at itv and look at what programming dominates the scheduling.

One soap is made by one franchise holder based in manchester who took over another northern broadcaster which was based in leeds. The franchise holder in manchester now runs itv. It makes sense for their programmes to lock out any other programmes

Dont know if thats the case. It was just pointed out to me

You are aware that it's all mostly now ITV PLC and very few if any of the top brass probably even worked at ITV during the regional era.

The majority of ITV programmes made by ITV that have been on TV more than 15 years tend to come from a former Granada region including LWT but that's because Carlton rarely brought anything to the table as a publisher broadcaster (and a champion of cheap tat)

Presumably poorly performing it will still do better than whatever was scheduled there before. It is sad though, we have seen primetime schedules recently which are just shuffled blocks of soap which isn't inviting anyone else in. As others have said its very lazy but also seems a bit desperate.

Remember ITV largely dominated television back in the day with just two episodes of Coronation Street and Emmerdale in daytime. How times change.

Id hazard a guess we will see a seventh at some point.

So why wouldnt a company give priority to their own products,seems logical really.

It's just heaping more pressure on her. I'd expect the Coronation St top job to be much more difficult than the Emmerdale one, even without this expansion.

And with Coronation St, you can't even fall back on regular explosions, because of all the buildings nearby. Any sort of conflagration has to be on a small scale.

Well a lot of the human species watch 6 episodes of Emmerdale.

Corrie 6 nights a week, ludicrous idea ITV.