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 off 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.
The greatest hits
Corriedale did exactly what every special soap episode sets out to do: it brought conclusion to long-running plots, while also creating brand new stories for our beloved characters to navigate.
While the scales fell from the eyes of Lisa Swain (Vicky Myers) in regards to her unhinged ex-wife Becky Swain’s (Amy Cudden), who’s plot to get both Lisa and their daughter, Betsy (Sydney Martin) out of the country was well and truly scuppered by Carla Connor (Alison King), who was rescued by Kit Green (Jacob Roberts) and determined to save her fiancée from her deadly ex.
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In a move that saw the nation punch the air and let out a desperate gasp of ‘finally’, Lisa suckered Becky in, then arrested her, ensuring she’ll pay for her numerous crimes.
David (Jack P Shepherd) and Shona Platt (Julia Goulding) were horrified in the aftermath of the crash to realise that their baby wasn’t moving. Thankfully, trainee-doctor, Jacob Gallagher (Joe-Warren Plant), was on hand to help, and their baby kicked.
Shona later went into labour, though, as she did, David began to have a seizure, having been diagnosed with epilepsy back in 2010.
Interestingly, Shona displayed a tattoo on her back of a tree, identical to one on the arm of mysterious newcomer, Jodie (Olivia Frances-Brown), who’s appearance leads us on to…
…the return of Graham Foster (Andrew Scarborough). You know? The dead one?
Jodie was tied up in the back of his van and used the crash as a means to escape captivity, eventually being found by Kit.
Graham placed an urgent phone call, informing somebody that they had a problem, before later ‘terminating’ the operation upon discovering Joe Tate (Ned Porteous) in hospital.
Elsewhere in the hospital, Cain Dingle (Jeff Hordley), after being shot while teaming up with Robert Sugden (Ryan Hawley) to hunt down John Sugden (Oliver Farnworth) and finally get some revenge for his son, Nate Robinson (Jurell Carter), who John had previously accidentally killed.
While the shot landed him in hospital, the doctor assured him that he’d make a full recovery. He also informed him, however, that while treating the gunshot injury, they’d discovered a sizeable mass, that they’d have to investigate further.
And while Robert and Aaron Dingle (Danny Miller) looked forward to their lives together…
John and Billy Mayhew (Daniel Brocklebank) both lost theirs, John via his sister, Victoria Sugden (Isabel Hodgins), and Billy by Theo Silverton (James Cartwright), who ensured he was strapped in to the flaming bus, just before it exploded.
