Coronation Street and Emmerdale announced today that the soaps are being slashed from 2026. It was announced this morning that from January 2026, Emmerdale will move to a half an hour slot daily from 8pm whilst Coronation Street will follow behind with their own half an hour episode from 8.30pm each weekday. This is a stark change to what it is now, with Emmerdale currently airing on Mondays through Fridays for half an hour from 7.30pm, with an hour long episode on Thursdays, whilst Coronation Street currently airs Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 8pm for an hour.

Whilst this has been dubbed as a move to a 'soap power hour' every day on ITV, ITV’s Managing Director of Media and Entertainment Kevin Lygo said the extra money saved would be used for other programmes. "This new commissioning pattern will mean five hours of soaps a week, rather than the current six. We are conscious this will have an impact for the people who work on the soaps team. We will support our colleagues in ITV Studios as they work through these changes, and will do what we can to mitigate the impact on our people," he said in a statement, "These changes are motivated by doing what we believe is best for the continuing success of these important programmes in the long term. They also create headroom in the overall programme budget for investment in programming that can help ITV grow reach in a very very competitive market.".

Filming has reportedly been suspended across both production sites today in Leeds and Manchester. "The move is leading to a wide range of redundancies across all departments. Staff were only told of the temporary studio shutdown yesterday afternoon, and attended a consultation meeting at 10am this morning," a source told Metro. In a statement shared with The Mirror, ITV said they couldn't be sure about how many redundancies would be made, but a source told us that around 75 roles out of a total of 600 across the soaps are expected to be made. ITV are believed to be hoping to do some of this through not filling current vacancies and voluntary redundancy to minimise the impact.

In his statement, Kevin added that the new pattern was "viewer-led" and confirmed fans could still stream the shows in the morning on ITVX. Each soap will drop their episode at 7am every morning, following an original pattern set by EastEnders. "The new commissioning pattern is viewer-led. We already give more choice than ever to viewers on how they watch us through ITVX and we want to present their favourite soap to them, in the most digestible way. In a world where there is so much competition for viewers' time and attention, and viewing habits continue to change, we believe this is the right amount of episodes that fans can fit into their viewing schedule, to keep up to date with the shows," he said.

"Research insights also show us that soap viewers are increasingly looking to the soaps for their pacey storytelling. Streaming-friendly, 30 minute episodes better provide the opportunity to meet viewer expectations for storyline pace, pay-off and resolution. Whilst viewing is growing on ITVX, we know a significant proportion of our soaps’ audience still watch us via the schedule. This new pattern is in the DNA of the soap genre - nobody else does 30 minute drama this successfully. It creates a soap power hour that's consistent, and easy to find in the linear schedule, for the UK’s biggest soaps.".

Since first airing on December 9 1960, Coronation Street has gone through a number of scheduling changes. It started with two episodes a week, which then increased over the years to six instalments by September 2017, before it was moved to three hour-long episodes a week in March 2022. When Emmerdale began in 1972 it was screened on two days a week, which then increased over the years to six episodes by 2004, with the sixth later changed to one hour-long episode per week.