Page 136 - Soaps News Today

There is no other programme - where you can live with a character for 20 years and see them four times l a week and really feel like theres l somebody that has visited your home. i if you think about the way that. hayley died in coronation street, one of their biggest storylines of the last couple of decades, j the reason it was so powerful is because we felt like - she was a friend. wed lived with her, _ wed lived her ups and downs, and then it just absolutely was a sucker punch. - so i think t...

This, my sweet, is a letter from my solicitor telling you that your husband has filed a petition for divorce. happy christmas, ange. that was dirty den handing angie watts divorce papers after shed lied to him about having six months left to live. 30 million people tuned in to watch that episode of eastenders, more than half the population. today, the show averages between 4 and 6 million per episode, much of it through iplayer. so do soaps matter any more? whats their place in the cultural land...

Episode which will take viewers back to 1979. and it will be a bit of a glimpse of the mitchell family in the earlier years. and they have cast jaime winstone to play peggy mitchell, which i think is a brilliant casting, because she also played barbara windsor in the babs programme that was on a few years ago. so i think thats a very good example of soaps trying to do something different, trying to have an appointment—to—view story that will hopefully bring in some lapsed viewers. ok, and in...

Of kind of, like, disrespect, really, for both the production and also for the audience in soaps over the years. but how do you decide on storylines? you know, do you sit down, or did you sit down, with writers and think, you know, i dont know, drug addiction, and then decide, "ok, well, were going to give it to that character." is it as mechanical as that? do you then sort of thread it through in those two years where youre thinking about it? you need people who really enjoy the form and really...

You know, drug addiction, whatever it might be. why, to your mind, are soaps the right vehicle for these issues? how do they do them differently? its to do with characters. there is no other programme - where you can live with a character for 20 years and see them four times l a week and really feel like theres l somebody that has visited your home. i if you think about the way that. hayley died in coronation street, one of their biggest storylines of the last couple of decades, j the reason it ...

And how much of it is linear viewing? they get between about 3 and 5 million viewers, depending on the time of year, depending on if theres a big storyline. id say the catch—up ratings tend to be about 1 million for the big soaps. i think eastenders is viewed slightly more on iplayer than the itv shows are with the itv hub, though. well, lets have a look at the creative process. the turnaround time for making soaps is really fast, as i understand it. from commissioning a story to transmission ...

You know, do you sit down, or did you sit down, with writers and think, you know, i dont know, drug addiction, and then decide, "ok, well, were going to give it to that character." is it as mechanical as that? do you then sort of thread it through in those two years where youre thinking about it? you need people who really enjoy the form and really enjoy that creative challenge of revisiting the same storyline with a different perspective, with different characters. because we didnt have a list ...

But cast your minds back to christmas day, 1986. anyone remember this? this, my sweet, is a letter from my solicitor telling you that your husband has filed a petition for divorce. happy christmas, ange. that was dirty den handing angie watts divorce papers after shed lied to him about having six months left to live. 30 million people tuned in to watch that episode of eastenders, more than half the population. today, the show averages between 4 and 6 million per episode, much of it through iplay...

Goodbye in that storyline. id say eastenders are doing something really interesting soon, which is theyre doing a flashback episode which will take viewers back to 1979. and it will be a bit of a glimpse of the mitchell family in their earlier years. and they have cast jaime winstone to play peggy mitchell, which i think is a brilliant casting, because she also played barbara windsor in the babs programme that was on a few years ago. so i think thats a very good example of soaps trying to do som...

Daniel kilkenny is soaps editor for entertainment news website digital spy. tv critic and soap fan emma bullimore is here, and charles collingwood, whos been farming, flirting and digging into his wifes venison pie for a whopping 47 years as brian in the archers. welcome to you all and thanks for coming on the show. phil, if we start with you, all the big soaps — eastenders, coronation street, emmerdale — have seen huge drops in audience numbers in recent years. youve criticised soaps for no...