UK Soaps’ top rating episodes

Let’s figure it out…

With figures released yesterday showing that one time fourth UK soap in the ratings top ten – Emmerdale – had unceremoniously trounced floundering BBC One rival EastEnders in a head to head ratings battle we take a look at British soap’s top ranking ratings.

On Tuesday night EastEnders was watched, at its peak, by 5.2million. Emmerdale, took a lead of over two million as both shows went head-to-head with the ITV soap airing an hour long special. The Leeds produced soap took 7.5million at its peak, 2.3million more than its London counterpart.

It was EastEnders’ lowest ratings figure so far in 2013 which have been lacklustre since 2012. ITV’s Coronation Street has also been out performing the beeb’s saga with over 9 million tuning in on Monday, compared to EastEnders’ 8.2 million for the same night.

Over the years soaps, especially in the days of just three or four television channels could command big audiences. Here’s a quick look at some of the top ratings bankers…

1 – EastEnders. BBC Elstree for BBC One. It is noted as having 30 million tune in during the 1980s, however this is a combined figure rather than a single broadcast rating. The fictional town of Walford and the residents of Albert Square always do well at Christmas and the big ratings came with the Den and Angie story reaching its divorce papers climax.

2 – Coronation Street. Granada for ITV. The show reached its biggest ratings in the 1980s as 26,930,000 turned on at its most popular point to say farewell to Hilda Odgen. It alternated top telly spot with Crossroads during the 1970s and EastEnders since the 1980s. Recently Emmerdale has been charging to take second place of the soap standing from ‘Enders. The residents of Weatherfield have virtually been, over fifty years, the nations most popular choice of serial.

3 – Emergency Ward 10. ATV for ITV. At its peak this medical saga, set in a London hospital, pulled in up to 24 million viewers. Single figure, not combined. This was just for an everyday episode of life in the Oxbridge hospital that brought us a plane crash long before its Yorkshire counterpart.

4- Crossroads. ATV for ITV. The everyday goings on in the village of Kings Oak. It’s currently ITV daytime’s most successful series with a number of episodes managing prime time ratings of 18 million. For many years it was, despite being a daytime saga, the UK’s second most watched series behind Corrie. The high ratings were unlike many of the other ‘soap boosts’ not for any particular storyline reasoning. Single figure, not combined.

5 – Emmerdale. Yorkshire Television for ITV. It was 1993 that the dales saga peaked with 18 million viewers for ‘that’ controversial storyline. The show had during the 1970s barely made the TV Top ten, but by the late 1980s with Crossroads being deliberately killed off it soon took its position as the UK’s third watched saga. Single figure, not combined.

*Data from TV Times/BARB/Broadcast Ratings Archive.