Corrie misses out on RTS nomination
ITV soap Coronation Street has not been nominated for the Soap & Continuing Drama award for this year’s Royal Television Society awards. The Manchester based soap celebrates its 50th anniversary in November of this year.
ITV’s flagship soap Coronation Street hasn’t been nominated for the Royal Television Society’s award for Best Soap/Continuing drama – nor has Emmerdale. BBC One soap EastEnders is the only soap in the category while drama’s Casualty and The Bill are the other contenders for the prestigious award. It may come as some of a shock to ITV especially as later this year Coronation Street will celebrate its 50th anniversary.
In January the Manchester based soap surprisingly won Best Soap at the National Television Awards so its absence from the RTS nominations will puzzle some. However, the soaps victory at the NTA’s wasn’t without controversy and some complained to Ofcom that the soap was had an unfair advantage over rivals such as Emmerdale and EastEnders because a special trailer was shown to promote the soap’s 50th anniversary while voting was still taking place. Critics argued that fellow soaps Hollyoaks and EastEnders should have received similar treatment because they also celebrate important anniversaries this year.
The inclusion of The Bill on the list may be something of an embarrassment for ITV as the cop-drama was revamped last year and moved out of its 8pm slot. The London based cop-drama had its number of episodes per year halved and its iconic theme tune was ditched in favour of something generic and bland. The revamp – which saw the series try to take on a grittier look – didn’t go down too well with fans and ratings are like a yoyo – up and down constantly. In November the soap was yanked off-air for the entire month by ITV.
The Royal Television Society Awards will be held on March 16th and will be hosted by Rob Brydon.