ITV takes huge risk as boss confirms massive changes to Coronation Street and Emmerdale

Iain MacLeod, the Executive Producer for Continuing Drama at ITV, has spoken about the changes ahead for Coronation Street and Emmerdale.

Everything changed for both soaps at the start of 2026, when they launched a new scheduling pattern. Emmerdale and Corrie both air five days a week now, with Emmerdale being broadcasted at 8-8:30pm, and Coronation Street following after for half an hour.

To coincide with the new schedule, ITV aired a massive crossover event called Corriedale. It saw lives from Weatherfield and the Yorkshire Dales put in serious danger as they were involved in a multi-vehicle collision.

In a world where streaming platforms are announcing new shows every single day, it’s sometimes far more tempting to switch Netflix on and watch a crime drama than it is to tune into Coronation Street again.

It’s why the world of soapland needs to make changes as the years tick by in order to stay relevant. We’ve seen them do this by airing episodes on ITVX and YouTube first, but now even more altercations are on the way.

Iain MacLeod recently revealed that a production overhaul will eventually improve the visual quality fans see whenever they flick Emmerdale or Coronation Street on. The producer admitted that the changes have been somewhat inspired by the incredible way Corriedale was shot.

‘In terms of the look and feel of the shows, we’re in the midst of a big piece of work around evolving what they both look like’, he said in a chat with the This Is Media City podcast.

‘I want there to be a somewhat consistent visual feel between the soaps, so you know when you turn on Emmerdale or turn on Corrie, that it’s an ITV soap – without homogenising it too much.

‘But we’re updating all of our kit, basically, in terms of cameras and post-production infrastructure and all the rest of it. There might [also] be some news around shifting from HD slightly upwards, in terms of the resolution that we’re using.’

Iain went on to explain that he really wants Corrie and Emmerdale to have a similar feel to a show from a streaming service, like Squid Game on Netflix.

He added: ‘What we don’t want is to be left behind. If your mum’s now watching Squid Game on Netflix, you don’t want those viewers to turn on Corrie or turn on Emmerdale and it looks like a completely different century – or genre, even.

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‘We want to evolve our look so it retains some of the cinematic flavours that we saw in Corriedale recently.’

He also confirmed that the teams are looking at potentially creating digital-based spin-offs.

‘We’re talking about things like micro-dramas, vertical dramas. Is there any other parallel IP we can generate with a different set of characters, that feeds into and out of the main show?That will, we hope, engage a slightly younger audience and maybe drive those younger viewers into [the main soaps]?’, he pondered.

‘We’re exploring all kinds of options with that. The other one is, can we boil our 23-minute episodes down into a micro-drama? That’s proving more difficult, because a lot goes on in a soap!’