Hollyoaks celebrates Best Soap win

Hollyoaks has come away with the ‘best soap’ gong at this year’s Broadcast Awards.

“It’s been a great year for all the soaps which makes it especially thrilling for Hollyoaks to have won best soap at the Broadcast Awards. Our writers, cast and crew work so hard to deliver stories that matter to our C4 audience. It’s fantastic to take this award back to Lime Pictures in Liverpool.” – Speaking about the win, Executive Producer Bryan Kirkwood

The show was notably celebrated for their “What is Consent?” storyline which was the first time the issue had been explored in mainstream drama. Beginning in 2016, the story initially focused on student, Ellie Nightingale (Sophie Porley) and what happened when she attended a Fresher’s Night party and went home with Nick Savage (Ben Ryan Davies), a man she had just met. Viewers then saw Ellie wakeup confused the next morning, with no recollection of having sex with him.

The storyline sparked important discussions about sexual consent.

Following on from this, Ellie struggled to tell people what had happened but when she eventually reported Nick, there wasn’t enough evidence to charge him. Ellie’s accusations weren’t believed by some residents of Hollyoaks – especially by best friend Holly and girlfriend to Nick Savage.

Hollyoaks revisited the storyline in 2017 when Nick ignored the request of his girlfriend Holly who didn’t consent to sex with him. Holly reported Nick and he was sentenced to 7 years in jail. The judges praised the soap saying, “I don’t think any other show could have told this story as well as Hollyoaks did”, “Impressive storytelling for the timeslot without being crass or obvious” and “Hollyoaks tackles important subjects across different platforms, encouraging discussion.”

Other winners at the gong show included BBC One which picked up ‘Channel of the Year’, ITV2’s Love Island took home ‘Multi-channel Programme’, Taskmaster from UKTV won ‘Entertainment Programme’ while Sir David Attenborough was bestowed the ‘Special Recognition‘ award.

“Hollyoaks is truly agenda-setting, and the consent storyline and the supporting documentary sparked an important and timely debate with our young audience. We are incredibly proud of Hollyoaks, and delighted they won this award in a very competitive category.’ – Chloe Tucker, Channel 4 Commissioning Editor for Hollyoaks