ITV Soap overkill

Does anyone else aggree ITV is having soap overkill at the moment? With Emmerdale being 6 times a week (Either a Sunday ep, or a 60 minute ep during the week) and Corrie's modnay night double bill, we are really getting too muhc. I think the quality of the shows are really starting to run thin at the moment- storylines are dragged out accross more episodes and poor stoylines are being used to fill the gaps. It's starting to get to the point where it's not really worth watching all the episodes- I often miss the the 2nd Corrie ep on a Monday. My main thought is at least that Emmerdale should ditch their 6th episode and Corrie should ditch the Monday Double Bill, and if they should have a 5th weekly ep, then it should be either on a Tuesday or Thursday- 2 on the same night is too much. Hour long eps, double-bills or extra episodes should be reserved for when there's big storylines, they should NOT be a regular thing. At least Brookside's producers had one right idea in thier heads by keeping it 3 nights a week (or the equivalent whent hey went omnibus-only).

In response to the question, "are there too many soaps on ITV?"

NO there arent too many at the moment.

Think back a few years and ITV seemed to be flooded with soaps - eg Home and Away Mon-Fri TWICE a day, Shortland Street 5 times a week, Night and Day 3 days a week and a late night omnibus, i know in the HTV Wales region there used to be Sons and Daughters, Young Doctors and Nuts and Bolts.

So the answer is still NO there aren't too many soaps on ITV at the moment. The only two I can think of are Emmerdale and Coronation Street.

It doesnt bother me having this 'extra' episode each week either! ITV is a commercial channel and it makes commercial sense to give the viewer what it wants. Coronation Street doesnt have to rely on intense storylines ALL the time and can easily carry this 'extra' episode per week. Whereas Emmerdale does seem to struggle sometime airing this 'extra' episode for no apparent reason!

I think ITV should buy Home and away back from five or make a bid for Neighbours foff the BBC.

PS since my post the topic has correctly been changed to, "are there too many soap episodes on ITV?" - which is a totally different question and would provoke a totally different answer. But I cant be bothered replying again!

I do not think there are too many soaps, nor do I think that they need any more. Investing into two strong soaps is better. I do think that they are on too often though - it's difficult to keep up with Coronation Street. I don't mind the two episodes on Monday, but I think it should go back to four episodes a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

I think there are too many episodes of Corrie and Emmerdale on ITV1 atm - The fact the 2nd episode of Corrie this Monday lost over 2 million viewers from those who watched the 1st episode is evidence enough it should be ditched asap.

Emmerdale being on 6 nights a week is ridiculas, I think 4 episodes a week of both soap is ample - Corrie on Sun, Mon (1 ep) Wed and Fri and Emmerdale Mon-Thurs. They should screen quiz shows on a Friday at 7pm in place of Emmerdale, storylines have become weaker in Emmerdale ever since it went to 5 episodes a week.

I also think they should bring back a soap to daytime - maybe Shortland Street or another overseas soap, but as a fan of SS I would love that to come back, HTV Wales should also bring back Nuts and Bolts 2 days a week.

We have the right amount of soaps on itv1 at the moment, and less than BBC ONE (if you count doctors).

They're on too frequently though. Sun, Mon, Wed, Friday is ample for coronation street, and can slow down the actors a bit, and put more into the brilliant storylines that are coming out at the moment.

As for emmerdale, 6 episodes a week is just plain stupid, and most are absolutely rubbish. Ever since it went from 3 to 5 nights a week. They should lower the number of episodes to either 4, or maybe 3, deffinately not at weekends or for an hour. itv1 seem to be getting extra episodes of soaps to fill schedules, rather than coming up with some quality documentaries, or new exciting ideas, they just go with soaps. They may get viewers, but its so unadventurous, and people will get sick of it soon.

The main reason they put the second ep of Corrie straight after Eastenders is simply to reclaim the audience they lose to BBC1 when Eastenders comes on.

Therefore, they'll get higher ratings throughout the evening for their new dramas on Monday (which is paramount considering the poor ratings some ITV dramas are getting this autumn). I suppose they can see a situation where they lose 1/2 the primetime audience after 8.00!

As for Emmerdale, well, that lost all credibility for me when they were used as a dummy for that Soapstars programme. One of the worst families ever to be in a soap IMO. They seem obsessed with sex and scandal as well, without the humour of Corrie.

If Corrie is on Monday at 8:30 to gain viewers, thent hey should have the 8:30 ep ONLY. The doiuble bill is far too much to take. As the ratings show, many viewers do not come back for the 2nd ep, I can see it being ditched soon.

Many viewers? Last time I looked it was about 1.5million. During the Hillman episodes, the later episodes were actually getting more viewers than the first, strangely enough.

The point is the 8.30pm episode is losing viewers not gaining them, they lost about 2.2 million from the 7.30pm episode, and drama's at 9pm have also flopped such as Family so clearly the idea of getting lots of people back to ITV is not working as well as they hoped - maybe they should come up with new idea's instead of putting the same shows on, as much as I like Corrie and Emmerdale it is just too much of them atm esp Emmerdale which I dont like as much as Corrie.

GLAD to see the title of this thread has been changed!

Im going to start a thread called - "are there too many soaps on the BBC?" and see what happens?

Balance and all that!

Yes, but DIFFERENT soaps. It's not that I had a problem with having hours and hours of soaps per week (I used to be a regular viewer of Corrie, Emmerdale, Eastenders, Brookside, Sunset Beach and Prisoner all at the same time), the problem is having more episodes of the same soaps, quality has fallen through the floor.


I agree, but investment does not directly translate into allocating more money for the sole purpose of producing more episodes. Money cannot buy creativity. And for a programme which has been running constantly for over 40 years (and in all of that time no more than 4 days have elapsed without an episode being shown), accelerating it's production can only bring the inevitable end closer. There is even evidence of it now: atm both Corrie and Emmerdale look as old and tired as each other, yet Corrie had an 11 year head start on Emmerdale, but in only a few years of running Emmerdale at a greatly accelerated rate whilst leaving Corrie at something near reasonable (but still on a bit too much) it has made up those years.

Look at old Corrie on Plus atm (and those episodes are barely 10 years old now) and there is a marked improvement in quality visible back in the days when they didn't run it to death.

I realise that American soaps run 5 days a week and most are in an hour long timeslot, but they are a totally different kettle of fish. They are daytime programmes which are INTENDED to be cheap and tacky - they are escapism for their audience. They have huge ensemble casts (the cast of Sunset Beach eventually grew to the extent when they had to have two title sequences running in rotation because there were so many characters) and the passage of time in them is very, very slow. They are a completely different kettle of fish to British soaps, which are supposed to be reasonably realistic snapshots of life, at more or less the same pace, and above all are supposed to be high quality productions many of which are the centrepiece of primetime schedules. And I really don't see that value evident in either Corrie or Emmerdale (or Eastenders, although it has seen a brief improvement lately) anymore, which is sad because they both used to be so great.

Now we're getting to the nitty gritty. Sex. The one thing which has made Emmerdale (and soaps in general) tedious and repetitive. What do we get in Emmerdale this evening? Katie being unfaithful with Robert. Do we REALLY need to see what's going on in the bedroom? Corrie is no better - they've made Sarah the S-l-a-p-p-e-r pregnant again. (Why does the swear filter object to that word?)

No soap needs to be on more than three nights a week, even (as fanoftv points out) if they get high ratings. It's just unimaginitive and when the ideas run out, the writers turn to carnal instincts. Soaps are no longer an event and I no longer make an effort to watch Corrie and Emmerdale.