Dales Rating’s Continue to Decline

Last night’s episode of Emmerdale saw its lowest audience since last September with 5.3 million viewers tuning in for the Yorkshire soap. This is yet another instance, one of several lately, where the soap has failed to break through the six million mark. These previous instances could be explained away by the spell of good weather – which saw ratings down generally across the board – but the weather has now turned and can not be used as an excuse.

The decline in ratings come on top of stories of low morale, character exits and a poor showing at The British Soap Awards. It also comes at a time when EastEnders is regularly winning its head-to-head against Emmerdale on Tuesday nights.

So why is Emmerdale suffering from low ratings? Why are audiences turning off in such numbers? Could it be the six episodes per week? Well five episodes, one of which is an hour long. Could the audience be suffering from Emmerdale fatigue? There’s little doubt that the increase in episodes has resulted in a decline in quality – no soap can produce constant quality with six episodes per week to air. And ratings have been steadily declining for some time now.

Only last year NewsZone was regularly reporting on declining ratings for the ITV soap – despite what ITV might claim. So the declining ratings aren’t new its just that they have now dropped below six million, where as last year they had dropped to six million. What can Emmerdale do it stabilize its audience share? Quality not quantity is the answer. Axe at least one, if not two, episodes per week and cut all the sensationalist storylines – and stop nicking storylines from Corrie too.