Thursday, 16 April 2015
Thursday, 9 April 2015
Welcome to Soap Stream
Welcome to Soap Stream, a blog all about soaps past and present.
In the United Kingdom, soaps are one of the most popular genres, with most being broadcast during prime time. Most UK soaps focus on more everyday, working-class communities.
The most popular soaps are Coronation Street, EastEnders, Emmerdale, Hollyoaks, Doctors, and the Australian produced Neighbours and Home and Away.
The first three of these are consistently among the highest-rated shows on British television.
The 1986 Christmas Day episode of EastEnders is often referred to as the highest-rated UK soap opera episode ever, with 30.15 million viewers.
The combined 30.15 million audience figure often sees it attributed as the highest-rated programme in UK television for the 1980s, comparable to the records set by the 1970 splashdown of Apollo 13 (28.6 million viewers) and Princess Diana's funeral in 1997 (32.1 million viewers).
Coronation Street, Emmerdale and EastEnders are popularly known as the "flagship" soaps, as they are respectively the highest-rated programmes on ITV and the BBC.
Poor ratings for a UK flagship serial sometimes brings with it questions about the associated channel. The soaps are so popular they are not routinely scheduled against each other.
Episodes of serials have clashed only on isolated occasions when extended episodes have been broadcast.
History of British Soaps
Soap operas in the UK began on radio and consequently were associated with the BBC. It had resisted soaps as antithetical to its quality image, though began broadcasting Front Line Family in April 1941 on its North American shortwave service to encourage American intervention on Britain's behalf in World War II.
The BBC continues to broadcast the world's longest-running radio soap, The Archers, which has been running nationally since 1951. It is currently broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and continues to attract over five million listeners, or roughly 25% of the radio listening population of the UK at that time of the evening.
An early television serial was The Grove Family on the BBC, which produced 148 episodes from 1954 to 1957. The programme was broadcast live and only a handful of recordings were retained in the archives.
In the 1960s Coronation Street revolutionised UK television and quickly became a British institution.
Another soap of the 1960s was ITV's Emergency Ward 10.
The BBC also produced several serials: Compact was about the staff of a women's magazine; The Newcomers was about the upheaval caused by a large firm setting up a plant in a small town; United! contained 147 episodes and focused on a football team; 199 Park Lane (1965) was an upper class serial, which ran for only 18 episodes. None of these serials came close to making the same impact as Coronation Street. Indeed, most of the 1960s BBC serials were largely wiped.
During the 1960s, Coronation Street 's main rival was Crossroads, a daily serial that began in 1964 and aired on ITV in the early evening.
Crossroads was set in a Birmingham motel and, although the programme was popular, its purported low technical standard and bad acting were much mocked.
By the 1980s, its ratings had begun to decline. Several attempts to revamp the programme through cast changes and, later, expanding the focus from the motel to the surrounding community were unsuccessful. Crossroads was cancelled in 1988 (a new version of Crossroads was later produced, running from 2001 until 2003).
A later rival to Coronation Street was ITV's Emmerdale Farm (later renamed Emmerdale), which began in 1972 in a daytime slot and was set in rural Yorkshire. Increased viewership resulted in Emmerdale being moved to a prime-time slot in the 1980s.
Pobol y Cwm (People of the Valley) is a Welsh language serial that has been produced by the BBC since October 1974, and is the longest-running television soap opera produced by the broadcaster.
Pobol y Cwm was originally broadcast on BBC Wales television from 1974 to 1982; it was then moved to the Welsh-language television station S4C when it opened in November 1982.
The programme was occasionally shown on BBC1 in London during periods of regional optout in the mid- to late 1970s.
Pobol y Cwm was briefly shown in the rest of the UK in 1994 on BBC2, with English subtitles; it is consistently the most watched programme each week on S4C.
Soaps in the 1980s
Daytime soap operas were non-existent until the 1970s because there was virtually no daytime television in the UK.
ITV introduced General Hospital, which later moved to a prime time slot, and Scottish Television had Take the High Road, which lasted for over twenty years. Later, daytime slots were filled with an influx of older Australian soap operas such as The Sullivans (aired on ITV from 1977),
The Young Doctors (from 1982), Sons and Daughters (from 1983), A Country Practice (from 1982), Richmond Hill (from 1988 to 1989) and eventually, Neighbours was acquired by the BBC in 1986, and Home and Away aired on ITV beginning in 1989.
These achieved significant levels of popularity; Neighbours and Home and Away were moved to early-evening slots, helping begin the UK soap opera boom in the late 1980s.
The day Channel 4 began operations in 1982 it launched its own soap, the Liverpool-based Brookside, which would redefine soaps over the next decade.
The focus of Brookside was different from earlier soap operas in the UK; it was set in a middle-class new-build cul-de-sac, unlike Coronation Street and Emmerdale Farm, which were set in established working-class communities.
The characters in Brookside were generally either people who had advanced themselves from inner-city council estates, or the upper middle-class who had fallen on hard times. Though Brookside was still broadcast in a pre-watershed slot (8.00 p.m. and 8.30 p.m. on weekdays, around 5.00 p.m. for the omnibus on Saturdays), it was more liberal than other soaps of the time: the dialogue regularly included expletives. This stemmed from the overall more liberal policy of the channel during that period.
The soap was also heavily politicised. Bobby Grant (Ricky Tomlinson), a militant trade-unionist anti-hero, was the most overtly political character. Storylines were often more sensationalist than on other soaps (throughout the soap's history, there were two armed sieges on the street) and were staged more graphically with violence (particularly, rape) often being featured.
In 1985, the BBC's London-based soap opera EastEnders debuted and became a near instant success with viewers and critics alike, with the first episode attracting over 17 million viewers.
The Christmas Day 1986 episode was watched by 30.15 million viewers and contained a scene in which divorce papers were served to Angie Watts by her husband Den. Critics talked about the downfall of Coronation Street, but the programme continued to perform successfully. In 1994, when the two serials were scheduled opposite each other, Coronation Street won the slot. For the better part of ten years,, EastEnders has shared the number one position with Coronation Street, with varying degrees of difference between the two.
A notable success in pioneering late-night broadcasting, in October 1984, Yorkshire Television began airing the cult Australian soap opera Prisoner, which originally ran from 1979 to 1986.
It was eventually broadcast on all regions of the UK in differing slots, usually around 23:00 (though never before 22:30 in any region), under the title Prisoner: Cell Block H. It was probably most popular in the Midlands where Central Television consistently broadcast the serial three times a week from 1987 to 1991. Its airing in the UK was staggered, so different regions of the country saw it at a different pace. The programme was immensely successful, regularly achieving 10 million viewers when all regions' ratings per episode were added together. Central bowed to fan pressure to repeat the soap, of which the first 95 episodes aired. Then, rival station Channel 5 also acquired rights to repeat the entire rerun of the programme, starting in 1997. All 692 episodes have since been released on DVD in the UK.
Soaps in the 1990s
In 1992, the BBC debuted Eldorado to alternate with EastEnders. The programme was heavily criticised and only lasted one year. Nevertheless soap operas gained increasing prominence on UK television schedules. In 1995, Channel 4 premiered Hollyoaks, a soap with a youth focus. When Channel 5 launched in March 1997, it debuted the soap opera Family Affairs, which was formatted as a daily soap, airing Monday through Fridays.
Brookside 's premise evolved during the 1990s, phasing out the politicised stories of the 1980s and shifting the emphasis to controversial and sensationalist stories such as child rape, sibling incest, religious cults and drug addiction, including the infamous 'body under the patio' storyline which ran from 1993 to 1995, and gave the serial its highest ratings ever with 9 million viewers.
Coronation Street and Brookside began releasing straight-to-video features. The Coronation Street releases generally kept the pace and style of conventional programmes episodes with the action set in foreign locations. The Brookside releases were set in the programme's usual location, but featured stories with adult content not allowed on television pre-watershed, with these releases given '18' certificates.
A retooling of Emmerdale Farm led to the Farm being dropped from the programme's title in 1989. In 1993, many of the changes where executed via a plane crash that partially destroyed the village and killed several characters. This attracted criticism as it was broadcast near the fifth anniversary of the Lockerbie bombing. The storyline drew the soap its highest ever viewership at 18 million viewers, and helped massively with the revamp of the programme which became a success and helped grow Emmerdale 's in popularity.
Throughout the 1990s, Brookside, Coronation Street, EastEnders and Emmerdale continued to flourish. Each increased the number of episodes that aired on a weekly basis by at least one, further defining soap operas as the leading genre in British television.
Soaps in the 21st Century
Since 2000, new soap operas have continued to be developed. Daytime drama Doctors began in March 2000, preceding Neighbours on BBC1. In 2002, as ratings for the Scottish serial High Road (formerly Take The High Road) continued to decline, BBC Scotland launched River City, which proved popular and effectively replaced High Road when it was cancelled in 2003. The long-running serial Brookside ended in November 2003 after 21 years on the air, leaving Hollyoaks as Channel 4's flagship serial.
A new version of Crossroads featuring a mostly new cast was produced by Carlton Television for ITV in 2001. It did not achieve high ratings and was cancelled in 2003. In 2001,
ITV also launched a new early-evening serial entitled Night and Day. This programme too attracted low viewership and, after being shifted to a late night time slot, was cancelled in 2003.
Family Affairs, which was broadcast opposite the racier Hollyoaks, never achieved significantly high ratings leading to several dramatic casting revamps and marked changes in style and even location over its run. By 2004, Family Affairs had a larger fan base and won its first awards, though was cancelled in late 2005.
In 2008, ITV premiered The Royal Today, a daily spin-off of popular 1960s drama The Royal, which had been running in a primetime slot since 2002.
Just days later, soap opera parody programmes Echo Beach premiered alongside its sister show, the comedy Moving Wallpaper. Both Echo Beach and The Royal Today ended after just one series due to low ratings. Radio soap opera Silver Street debuted on the BBC Asian Network in 2004. Poor ratings and criticism of the programme led to its cancellation in 2010.
In the United Kingdom, soaps are one of the most popular genres, with most being broadcast during prime time. Most UK soaps focus on more everyday, working-class communities.
The most popular soaps are Coronation Street, EastEnders, Emmerdale, Hollyoaks, Doctors, and the Australian produced Neighbours and Home and Away.
The first three of these are consistently among the highest-rated shows on British television.
The 1986 Christmas Day episode of EastEnders is often referred to as the highest-rated UK soap opera episode ever, with 30.15 million viewers.
The combined 30.15 million audience figure often sees it attributed as the highest-rated programme in UK television for the 1980s, comparable to the records set by the 1970 splashdown of Apollo 13 (28.6 million viewers) and Princess Diana's funeral in 1997 (32.1 million viewers).
Coronation Street, Emmerdale and EastEnders are popularly known as the "flagship" soaps, as they are respectively the highest-rated programmes on ITV and the BBC.
Poor ratings for a UK flagship serial sometimes brings with it questions about the associated channel. The soaps are so popular they are not routinely scheduled against each other.
Episodes of serials have clashed only on isolated occasions when extended episodes have been broadcast.
History of British Soaps
Soap operas in the UK began on radio and consequently were associated with the BBC. It had resisted soaps as antithetical to its quality image, though began broadcasting Front Line Family in April 1941 on its North American shortwave service to encourage American intervention on Britain's behalf in World War II.
The BBC continues to broadcast the world's longest-running radio soap, The Archers, which has been running nationally since 1951. It is currently broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and continues to attract over five million listeners, or roughly 25% of the radio listening population of the UK at that time of the evening.
An early television serial was The Grove Family on the BBC, which produced 148 episodes from 1954 to 1957. The programme was broadcast live and only a handful of recordings were retained in the archives.
In the 1960s Coronation Street revolutionised UK television and quickly became a British institution.
Another soap of the 1960s was ITV's Emergency Ward 10.
The BBC also produced several serials: Compact was about the staff of a women's magazine; The Newcomers was about the upheaval caused by a large firm setting up a plant in a small town; United! contained 147 episodes and focused on a football team; 199 Park Lane (1965) was an upper class serial, which ran for only 18 episodes. None of these serials came close to making the same impact as Coronation Street. Indeed, most of the 1960s BBC serials were largely wiped.
During the 1960s, Coronation Street 's main rival was Crossroads, a daily serial that began in 1964 and aired on ITV in the early evening.
Crossroads was set in a Birmingham motel and, although the programme was popular, its purported low technical standard and bad acting were much mocked.
By the 1980s, its ratings had begun to decline. Several attempts to revamp the programme through cast changes and, later, expanding the focus from the motel to the surrounding community were unsuccessful. Crossroads was cancelled in 1988 (a new version of Crossroads was later produced, running from 2001 until 2003).
A later rival to Coronation Street was ITV's Emmerdale Farm (later renamed Emmerdale), which began in 1972 in a daytime slot and was set in rural Yorkshire. Increased viewership resulted in Emmerdale being moved to a prime-time slot in the 1980s.
Pobol y Cwm (People of the Valley) is a Welsh language serial that has been produced by the BBC since October 1974, and is the longest-running television soap opera produced by the broadcaster.
Pobol y Cwm was originally broadcast on BBC Wales television from 1974 to 1982; it was then moved to the Welsh-language television station S4C when it opened in November 1982.
The programme was occasionally shown on BBC1 in London during periods of regional optout in the mid- to late 1970s.
Pobol y Cwm was briefly shown in the rest of the UK in 1994 on BBC2, with English subtitles; it is consistently the most watched programme each week on S4C.
Soaps in the 1980s
Daytime soap operas were non-existent until the 1970s because there was virtually no daytime television in the UK.
ITV introduced General Hospital, which later moved to a prime time slot, and Scottish Television had Take the High Road, which lasted for over twenty years. Later, daytime slots were filled with an influx of older Australian soap operas such as The Sullivans (aired on ITV from 1977),
The Young Doctors (from 1982), Sons and Daughters (from 1983), A Country Practice (from 1982), Richmond Hill (from 1988 to 1989) and eventually, Neighbours was acquired by the BBC in 1986, and Home and Away aired on ITV beginning in 1989.
These achieved significant levels of popularity; Neighbours and Home and Away were moved to early-evening slots, helping begin the UK soap opera boom in the late 1980s.
The day Channel 4 began operations in 1982 it launched its own soap, the Liverpool-based Brookside, which would redefine soaps over the next decade.
The focus of Brookside was different from earlier soap operas in the UK; it was set in a middle-class new-build cul-de-sac, unlike Coronation Street and Emmerdale Farm, which were set in established working-class communities.
The characters in Brookside were generally either people who had advanced themselves from inner-city council estates, or the upper middle-class who had fallen on hard times. Though Brookside was still broadcast in a pre-watershed slot (8.00 p.m. and 8.30 p.m. on weekdays, around 5.00 p.m. for the omnibus on Saturdays), it was more liberal than other soaps of the time: the dialogue regularly included expletives. This stemmed from the overall more liberal policy of the channel during that period.
The soap was also heavily politicised. Bobby Grant (Ricky Tomlinson), a militant trade-unionist anti-hero, was the most overtly political character. Storylines were often more sensationalist than on other soaps (throughout the soap's history, there were two armed sieges on the street) and were staged more graphically with violence (particularly, rape) often being featured.
In 1985, the BBC's London-based soap opera EastEnders debuted and became a near instant success with viewers and critics alike, with the first episode attracting over 17 million viewers.
The Christmas Day 1986 episode was watched by 30.15 million viewers and contained a scene in which divorce papers were served to Angie Watts by her husband Den. Critics talked about the downfall of Coronation Street, but the programme continued to perform successfully. In 1994, when the two serials were scheduled opposite each other, Coronation Street won the slot. For the better part of ten years,, EastEnders has shared the number one position with Coronation Street, with varying degrees of difference between the two.
A notable success in pioneering late-night broadcasting, in October 1984, Yorkshire Television began airing the cult Australian soap opera Prisoner, which originally ran from 1979 to 1986.
It was eventually broadcast on all regions of the UK in differing slots, usually around 23:00 (though never before 22:30 in any region), under the title Prisoner: Cell Block H. It was probably most popular in the Midlands where Central Television consistently broadcast the serial three times a week from 1987 to 1991. Its airing in the UK was staggered, so different regions of the country saw it at a different pace. The programme was immensely successful, regularly achieving 10 million viewers when all regions' ratings per episode were added together. Central bowed to fan pressure to repeat the soap, of which the first 95 episodes aired. Then, rival station Channel 5 also acquired rights to repeat the entire rerun of the programme, starting in 1997. All 692 episodes have since been released on DVD in the UK.
Soaps in the 1990s
In 1992, the BBC debuted Eldorado to alternate with EastEnders. The programme was heavily criticised and only lasted one year. Nevertheless soap operas gained increasing prominence on UK television schedules. In 1995, Channel 4 premiered Hollyoaks, a soap with a youth focus. When Channel 5 launched in March 1997, it debuted the soap opera Family Affairs, which was formatted as a daily soap, airing Monday through Fridays.
Brookside 's premise evolved during the 1990s, phasing out the politicised stories of the 1980s and shifting the emphasis to controversial and sensationalist stories such as child rape, sibling incest, religious cults and drug addiction, including the infamous 'body under the patio' storyline which ran from 1993 to 1995, and gave the serial its highest ratings ever with 9 million viewers.
Coronation Street and Brookside began releasing straight-to-video features. The Coronation Street releases generally kept the pace and style of conventional programmes episodes with the action set in foreign locations. The Brookside releases were set in the programme's usual location, but featured stories with adult content not allowed on television pre-watershed, with these releases given '18' certificates.
A retooling of Emmerdale Farm led to the Farm being dropped from the programme's title in 1989. In 1993, many of the changes where executed via a plane crash that partially destroyed the village and killed several characters. This attracted criticism as it was broadcast near the fifth anniversary of the Lockerbie bombing. The storyline drew the soap its highest ever viewership at 18 million viewers, and helped massively with the revamp of the programme which became a success and helped grow Emmerdale 's in popularity.
Throughout the 1990s, Brookside, Coronation Street, EastEnders and Emmerdale continued to flourish. Each increased the number of episodes that aired on a weekly basis by at least one, further defining soap operas as the leading genre in British television.
Soaps in the 21st Century
Since 2000, new soap operas have continued to be developed. Daytime drama Doctors began in March 2000, preceding Neighbours on BBC1. In 2002, as ratings for the Scottish serial High Road (formerly Take The High Road) continued to decline, BBC Scotland launched River City, which proved popular and effectively replaced High Road when it was cancelled in 2003. The long-running serial Brookside ended in November 2003 after 21 years on the air, leaving Hollyoaks as Channel 4's flagship serial.
A new version of Crossroads featuring a mostly new cast was produced by Carlton Television for ITV in 2001. It did not achieve high ratings and was cancelled in 2003. In 2001,
ITV also launched a new early-evening serial entitled Night and Day. This programme too attracted low viewership and, after being shifted to a late night time slot, was cancelled in 2003.
Family Affairs, which was broadcast opposite the racier Hollyoaks, never achieved significantly high ratings leading to several dramatic casting revamps and marked changes in style and even location over its run. By 2004, Family Affairs had a larger fan base and won its first awards, though was cancelled in late 2005.
In 2008, ITV premiered The Royal Today, a daily spin-off of popular 1960s drama The Royal, which had been running in a primetime slot since 2002.
Just days later, soap opera parody programmes Echo Beach premiered alongside its sister show, the comedy Moving Wallpaper. Both Echo Beach and The Royal Today ended after just one series due to low ratings. Radio soap opera Silver Street debuted on the BBC Asian Network in 2004. Poor ratings and criticism of the programme led to its cancellation in 2010.
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