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Huge win for Emmerdale and Coronation Street as Corriedale pulls in major numbers | Soaps
Corriedale was everything it set out to be. The biggest soap event of all time exploded onto screens last night, with the fiery collision of Coronation Street and Emmerdale providing the biggest TV peak audience for a soap in three years.
Soap viewers flocked to ITV for the lead-in episodes of both Coronation Street and Emmerdale, which achieved peak viewership of 3.9 and 3.6 million respectively, while the main event, Corriedale itself, achieved a peak of 4.7 million, with an average of 4.2 across the whole hour-long show.
It utterly dominated the terrestrial channels last night, with a mega 31.6% share of the audience, achieving the highest live television ratings for a soap in over a year, while bringing in the highest live television audience for any drama across all broadcasters and streamers since the February 2025 offering of Call the Midwife.
It also claimed ITV’s highest television audience since I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!
Corriedale didn’t just dominate television, however. The mega production that saw numerous plot points from both shows come to an explosive climax was also a juggernaut on social media, totalling up a combined reach of over 140 million across all platforms.
A new era
Corriedale ushered in a brand new era for the ITV soaps, dubbed the ‘soap power hour’. A new scheduling pattern, which will see back-to-back episodes of both Emmerdale and Coronation Street from Monday to Friday has officially begun, with both shows set to explore the devastating consequences of the multi-car pile up that saw enemies kill, secrets explode and lives change forever.
Both soaps kick are starting the new year on the front foot, following a record breaking year for them on ITVX, which saw a 30% increase in viewing, in turn, achieving more than half a billion streams in 2025 for the first time ever.
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