ITV ANNOUNCES EMMERDALE AND CORONATION STREET CROSSOVER EPISODE TO MARK NEW SCHEDULE IN 2026

ITV’s flagship soaps Coronation Street and Emmerdale will join forces in an unprecedented, one-off special episode to launch the broadcaster’s new power hour of soap which begins on ITV1 and STV in January 2026.

For the first time in British soap history, the hour-long episode will see characters from both soaps come together in a celebration of the soap genre.

To herald the beginning of the new scheduling pattern, both soaps will mark the occasion in spectacular style, as the combined production teams embark on an ambitious stunt that will have everlasting consequences for everyone involved.

The distinctive worlds of Emmerdale and Coronation Street will merge for one night only in a ‘mash-up’ of our two favourite communities. The producers, scriptwriters and production teams have conceived an ingenious way of linking the two universes, but with characters then returning to the soaps they are renowned for inhabiting in Manchester and Yorkshire.

The episode will be self-contained, but the consequences of the high-stakes drama will have repercussions for both communities and see them linked forever as familiar faces depart and exciting new characters arrive into both soaps.  

Each soap will then return to its new normal pattern of transmission - 30 minutes each evening - Emmerdale episodes at 8pm, and Coronation Street episodes at 8.30pm on ITV1 and STV. Episodes will continue to drop at 7am on ITVX and STV Player, before transmission that evening.

And in an extra treat for the viewers, the producers of both programmes are inviting the audience to choose which two characters, one from each soap, they would like to see meet and interact in a scene.  Details of this initiative will be launched next month via Coronation Street and Emmerdale’s Insta, Facebook and Tik Tok accounts with viewers then able to influence the content of our two pre-eminent soaps.

The new schedule chimes with research insights that show 30-minute episodes attracted higher audiences in 2024, and deliver more digestible instalments of continuing drama that better fits with changing viewer habits.

Coronation Street and Emmerdale are the UK’s biggest soaps with a combined weekly reach of over 8 million viewers. The changes ensure that ITV remains the premier home of soap, as the commissioning broadcaster that backs the genre more than anyone else in the market. 

As part of the drive to bring the soaps to the biggest possible audiences, however they choose to watch, ITV also launched a new dedicated home for soap on ITVX in 2024, and in 2025 is pledging additional marketing support, with the aim of maintaining Coronation Street and Emmerdale’s leading position long into the future.

Both soaps have had strong start to 2025 with 124 million streams on ITVX. Soap viewing is up +35% on Q1 2024, as a consequence of strong storylines and episodes being available for streaming on ITVX and STV Player from 7am ahead of their evening broadcast.

More details will be announced in due course.