How Gavin Blyth saved Emmerdale

The producer took Emmerdale to great success.

Over the weekend it was announced that Emmerdale producer Gavin Blyth had died at the age of 41.

Blyth took over as producer on the Yorkshire soap in 2009 and turned around its fortunes – here we ask you, the fans, to post how you think Gavin Blyth saved Emmerdale.

There is no doubt of Blyth’s talent and success in turning around the fortunes of Emmerdale. He became the producer of the Yorkshire soap in January 2009 taking over from previous producer Anita Turner who had left the production in a terrible mess as far as fans were concerned.

The soap that Blyth inherited was plagued by bad press stories and ratings decline. Barely a week went by without some tabloid publishing a story about low morale on the set of the soap.

However, all that changed when Gavin Blyth took over; he immediately set to work fixing the soaps problems. Yes he axed some characters but he wasn’t exactly the first producer to do that and nor will he be the last. It is now a given that when any new producer joins a soap they’ll be some cast changes; sometimes they are small ones and sometimes they are big ones (ala Paul Marquess in Hollyoaks).

Blyth also set about introducing new characters/families to spice up Emmerdale and also tempted a few characters back (such as Charity and Cain).

There is no denying that Emmerdale is now stronger than it has been for several years and that is thanks to Gavin Blyth’s hard work. So we can you, the fans, to post on how you think he saved Emmerdale. What was it that made the fans return? Was it the new characters/families? Was it the stronger storylines and what storyline/character do you think will be the definitive one of Gavin Blyth’s time on the soap? Let us Know.

Gavin Blyth: 1969 – 2010