EastEnders

Looks like classic EastEnders is coming to Drama: https://drama.uktv.co.uk/shows/classic-eastenders/

Why bother there'll do the same to the bill...

Until they do what they did with The Bill and drop it or skip ahead 10 years after a few weeks.

More like 15 years. When they skipped ahead, they went to 1999, and are currently on 2000. If they started from the beginning originally, that's 1984.

They actually skipped to 1998, the episode "Deep End" which was first shown in August that year.

Indeed which was down to music rights management as they couldn’t clear certain tracks I believe? Not the cited reason that fans preferred the soapy version, the backlash on their Facebook page after all the hype was interesting to say the least!

The 1998-2010 episodes had been on regular rotation for years anyway, so they were just going back to their usual schedule.

I wouldn't mind as much if they showed 1990s episodes of EastEnders as they still haven't been on TV for years - what would be disappointing is if they were all from the last decade, which don't really feel that classic.

Was there a tribute to Leslie after last night's programme?

According to digital spy they did.
http://www.digitalspy.com/soaps/eastenders/news/a859597/eastenders-bbc-on-air-tribute-dirty-den-actor-leslie-grantham/

I never thought it was due to ratings or "viewer demand", the amount of time it had been running seemed far too short for them to have made the decison on ratings grounds (especially after all the publicity), not to mention the fact they'd been pubishing schedules showing the 1989 episodes then suddenly pulled them less than a week before they were due to start showing them (too late for some printed TV guides to even be able to change them). I always suspected rights issues were the true reason despite them claiming otherwise.

At least I'd hope with UKTV being half owned by BBC Worldwide there's likely to be less chance of rights issues with a BBC show like EastEnders rather than buying a show in from outside like with The Bill.

They also played out the end credits clean with no VO or ECP, which I assume was out of respect rather then because of the different time slot. The tribute caption was held in place for about 5 seconds after the credits finished.