Coronation Street and Emmerdale cancel filming after news of cutbacks

Coronation Street and Emmerdale have both cancelled filming today following news of cutbacks for both soaps.

ITV has announced that Corrie and Emmerdale will reduce their number of weekly episodes from next year, impacting the teams who work on the long-running shows.

From January 2026, Corrie and Emmerdale will both air five 30-minute episodes each week.

Emmerdale will air on weeknights at 8pm, with Coronation Street following each weeknight at 8.30pm.

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ITV

Digital Spy understands that Coronation Street and Emmerdale have both cancelled filming in Manchester and Leeds today.

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The temporary production shutdown allowed cast, crew and other members of the creative teams to be informed of the changes this morning.

A soap insider told Digital Spy that production will resume as normal on Wednesday (February 5).

Kevin Lygo, ITV's Managing Director of Media and Entertainment, said today: "This new commissioning pattern will mean five hours of soaps a week, rather than the current six.

ITV

"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.

"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."

Channel 4's Hollyoaks went through a similar process last year, downsizing cast, crew and creative teams as the soap reduced from five to three weekly episodes.

Hollyoaks announced its changes in February 2024 and the new-look show was unveiled in September.

Coronation Street airs on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 8pm on ITV1 and streams on ITVX.