Whilst I know most soap fans do watch all or some of the shows, I can't help noticing that EE has poor viewer retention.

Granted last week bar Friday, EE posted some healthy viewing figures of 6-6,5m and it had the Grant story and the One Direction gang, but it seems when it's a normal week it posts 5.5m or less.

Corrie on the other hand, seems to have a default audience no matter how bad the episode is. They could have 30 minutes of Sean reading a monologue and it would will still finish first.

Whilst I know not every week can have big storylines, and you're going to get some "down time", shouldn't SOC be looking at ways to retain and keep hold of the audience? I also think the BBC are at fault. CS/ED do well as it's repeated endlessly on ITV2 - I know we lost BBC3 and not everyone has Watch, but surely a Sunday ombinus could boost the viewers up and even win some back? I also think the show is poorly promoted too.

Another thing is, I reckon EE is loosing some of the younger audience. I've got a 22 year old sister who finds it's crap a lot of the time, and she'd rather see "Hollyoaks" (which I think is a joker programme, but don't begrudge anyone who watches it) as she finds it a lot more engaging. I've also a 29 year old relative who found the scenes with the gang pathetic, but liked the scenes with the Cokers and Dot and Colin and Sonia as he found them more engaging and interesting. Bar Louise, Jay, Ben and Abi, the younger cast are pretty woeful. Shaks is boring, Bex has potential but is wasted. Courtney and Mark jr need to be full time, Lauren hasn't done anything (and is deadwood imo) and we're going to lose Lee and Johnny needs work. Surely something relatable other than a cringey 16th with a cringey storyline would work?

What does anyone think?

The trouble for me with the last couple of years is that we've seen a whole host of characters commit some dreadful crimes and not one of them paid. The only ones who paid for their crimes were Bobby and poor Jay. It leaves a very bitter taste.

The other problem is the Mitchells, particularly Phil and Sharon, have completely dominated the last couple of years and, as if they aren't annoying enough, they've brought in his Tarty, bratty daughter.

Perhaps the Mitchell domination is part of the reason why EE can't retain an audience...then again CS has the Platts and ED the Dingles yet they're always retaining an audience.

I do agree about the crimes issue - the whole Lucie storyline was badly handled, not to mention all that with Vincent and Claudette. At least CS/ED the culprits pay - e.g Clayton facing trial for murdering Kylie and Callum getting his just desserts.

Why then did the audience spike upward of 20% when Grant was back last week?

I think EE biggest problem is it needs to work out who its target audience is.

I think the over 30's prefer ED as that seems to appeal most to that age range as most of its cast and the storylines are for the 30-40 year old bracket. It also does explosive storylines well, whilst also tackling difficult subjects such as Ashley's dementia or Belle's psychosis and David's cancer, all done well and tastefully without it being all doom and gloom.

CS has a mixed age range and I think has never really moved away from the normal day to day living on a backstreet in Manchester, it has the most varied range of characters, ages and storylines and doesn't go for sensationalism too often.

HO really is for the youngsters but I think it does it pretty well, yes its way over the top but then that's what keeps younger viewers attention.

EE just seems lost. It drags too many storylines out, the pacing of the show is very slow, poorly written and out of character a lot of the time. It just seems a dated formula now and needs refreshing. Its like its stuck in the last century when it was last popular and relevant, personally I think its on its last legs and I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if the BBC drop it and whether it gets bought up by another channel its days could be numbered.

I think ED has improved a lot, and is hot on the heels of being the second soap. I do agree it does draw in the over 30s audience, as those storylines mentioned have got people engaged and talking about the show. Even CS has a young fanbase - there was a lot of people of all ages that were a bit upset Kylie was murdered, plus even the Bethany storyline and Craig are getting younger viewers.

I think EE can't find it's audience - perhaps SOC could shake things up and make it a lot more character driven and storylines have a proper arc as opposed to being lost.

Simple. People were expecting the Mark reveal

What you need to look at is the year round. Last Chritmas , a Mitchell Christmas, had it's lowest seasonal viewing figures ever...less than 5.5 mil. 2 mil down on the year before.

The moment anything remotely exciting happens, the softy brigade ring up and complain because their poor munchkins cannot deal with anything remotely interesting.

So a show that was once not afraid to show homophobes, racist comments, violence, raunchy sex scenes has become so watered down that the most exciting things that happen is a salsa show and discussion about bins.

We once got some right evil villains but in the last year we had to contend with Gavin and his fake wigs. Gordon the flipping Gopher would have made a much more convincing baddie.

They need to focus on getting proper experienced dramatic actors in rather that musical theatre actors who are far to theatrical. Characterisation has been thrown out of the window, they feel as long as they have some big names in the cast they don't need to worry about the characters being interesting.

The endless repetition puts people off. What's the point of watching an episode that was exactly the same as the night before? It seems they are incapable of bringing fresh ideas to the table.

New producers never seem able to improve the show, they just paper over the cracks. Characters that don't work are replaced with other characters that don't work.

I seem to watch out of habit rather than enjoyment and I'm getting really close to giving up altogether.

My brothers and siblings don't watch it these as it a load of crap and boring/lame storylines.

I think the reason why it ratings is falling because it has one good every 6 months and then goes in to a sleep mode, it like the writer and produer are lazy. They can't expect viewers to be watching for crap for a long time and be loyal to it. It always inconsistency as well. Corrie and emmerdale is not miserable like ee, that why the viewers loves the programme and stick with it.

Me aswell, it been boring for ages. Yesterday was the final straw, what a load of crap.

I think with the OFCOM brigade, something needs to be done. Perhaps charge £2 a minute for the call, and have it complainers aren't anonymous and their details will be online. Look at all the complaints in Corrie - what is wrong with two men in love? I bet if it was two women, those complainers would be gushing. I think sadly as well, with the powers that be in charge and the government interference with the BBC, I can imagine now the BBC is neutured everywhere and I don't just mean with EE. I wouldn't be surprised if the BBC is a rolling news channel by the 2020 General Election.

It does feel like the show in on a spin cycle. Last night bar the Sylvie/Sonia/Tina stuff (which I admit deserves a lot more credit than critisim as Linda Marlowe has delivered a cracking performance), it was just the usual rinse and repeat Carmel and Denise and Mas stuff. It was just boring.

I won't see tonight's episode, but it's unlikely I will watch it on catch-up or Youtube. I think SOC needs a clear vision.

I'm not sure more violence is the answer S. We've had two men go to the crusher, a rape, a violent sexual attack, a homophobic hate crime and murder, a woman buried alive, another woman brain damaged by a hockey stick and a young girl killed and her body desecrated. We also had Nick's callous killing and a few attempted murders.

I don't disagree that we need a good villain or two but that's never going to happen when the law is that Phil Mitchell must be top dog.

Personally, I just can't warm to the latest 'teen invasion'.

The trials, tribulations and tortured love-lives of Man-bun and his pals do very little to retain my interest.

I prefer storylines that deal with established actors, not just the latest 'rent-a-teen' brought in to try and attract the younger demographic.

The show has become stale, same old thing being played out every episode. It is surprising the audience fluctuates each episode, but then again so does the quality. Like last week, Monday and Tuesday's episodes were complete rubbish, but Thursday and Friday vastly improved. It is also a shame that key storylines are cheapened, like Paul's death was just an excuse so Grant could come back and swing a bat around. It's a shame because at one time the very same show was capable of delivering excellent episodes
week on week, whether it was an important storyline or not, but now it seems each week you have no idea whether you're going to watch a half decent episode or one that's straight out of the Newman era.

Regarding Hollyoaks Neil, I agree with your sister. Currently HO is much better and is far more engaging than watching salsa classes, man bun's (lack of) sex life and scenes about bins. But when EastEnders pulls out a decent episode it shows they can do it, and hopefully SOC ups the quality and keeps it consistent.

I do agree the issue with Paul's storyline was hijacked with revenge attacks and Grant's return. I'd rather had all the focus on Pam and Les and losing their grandson and perhaps Ben dealing with the grief rather than bloody revenge. It cheapened the issue of hate-crime.

I think last night with the bins was like a Newman-era episode. This is the period EE was at it's lowest ebb and it did feel like that a bit. I don't want EE being Hollyoaks 2, but perhaps a shake-up could help it?

To be fair that was against the last ever episode of Downtown Abbey so was always going to suffer unless Sean Connery guested as Jane's secret son. Re the OP for me personally EE has descended quite rapidly into a succession of soap cliches despite the promise of something different under DTC so I only watch intermittently now. Corrie had already done that so I gave it up years ago, even though it had some great characters such as Carla left.

Hopefully things will pick up slowly from here on in. Like many of you on here I've not enjoyed it for a while bar the odd episode. But since I know there's a new EP taking over and that things are bound to change within the next month I'm sticking with it although I have said if I don't see any general improvement by the end of the year I'll probably give up on it. So don't go leaving us now Scrabbler, what would we do without you

I disagree. Like him or not Grant is an extremely popular character.

Also next week looks like a good week even though nothing major is going on it looks like there's more simple day to day drama.

I didn't check the ratings for a while. Were they up for every one of his episodes for the three weeks he was back.

I don't know I don't check ratings either

It's become truly ridiculous - just look the state of him and now TPTB are asking us to believe that Ben and Jay are the next Kray twins.

So that's another 25 years of no decent villains in the square then.

Just great.