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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Entertainment
Kyle O'Sullivan

Why Corrie, Emmerdale and EastEnders get cancelled for football despite angry protests

Coronation Street fans have good reason to be furious tonight as they won't be seeing the normal bit of Manchester on their screens.

The nation's favourite soap has once again been scrapped to make way for ITV's continued coverage of the 2022 Emirates FA Cup.

Coverage of Friday night's titanic FA cup clash between Manchester United and Middlesbrough at Old Trafford will start airing at 7.30pm, which means Corrie has been given the chop.

Because there is usually a double dose of Weatherfield action on a Friday, viewers are missing out on an entire hour of their soap fix and will be seeing Cristiano Ronaldo instead of Ken Barlow.

To make up for the cancellation there will be an special hour-long episode on Tuesday, but many Corrie fans have reached the end of their tether.

This certainly isn't the first time that Corrie has been forced to make way for men kicking a pigskin on some grass - while EastEnders and Emmerdale are also regular casualties.

But what is the real reason for all of this schedule chaos?

David Platt is protesting against the Corrie cancellation (ITV)

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Soap viewers always flock to Twitter with their frustrations when the news is announced.

"Why is Corrie always the programme to be cancelled? Sport always seems to come before drama. So annoyed," one fan complained.

"Noooo! I was so looking forward to tonight's episode. RAGING," another echoed.

A third quipped: "Strange to think my husband will be watching ITV at 7.30pm tonight. That's usually my time in front of the telly to watch Corrie."

"This has pi**ed me right off. ITV needs to sort itself out," someone else fumed.

The FA cup coverage cause all of the soaps to come off ITV and the BBC every single year, but 2021 was a particularly bad one for cancellations due to the Euros.

England progressed all the way to the final, where they were beaten by Italy on penalties at Wembley, with every match airing either on ITV or BBC One.

Ronaldo will be on our screens tonight (Getty Images)

What made last year even worse was that all of the major soaps were massively disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic.

Filming had to stop due to lockdown rules, so EastEnders and Hollyoaks were forced off air for a few weeks, while Emmerdale and Corrie had to cut their weekly episode output in half.

There will also be mass football disruption at the end of this year when the 2022 World Cup in Qatar begins.

Soap fans struggle to understand why the ball kicking can't be put on another channel and their beloved Corrie be left in it's normal time slot.

One tweeted: "What else dominates a channel for about 5 hours and in doing so removes a family favourite? Football dominates again. Why not put #Corrie or football on ITV2?"

"Why can’t football be moved to it’s own channel why ruin my life #corrie," added another.

A third said: "So @ITV have once again ‘Sabotaged’ Monday evening TV with Football. Why not put it on a ‘sports’ channel? Or ITV 2? Just a thought for the people who are not actually interested in watching 22 men kicking a ball around for 90 minutes. Missing #Corrie

"#corrie isn't on AGAIN. are they taking the fucking piss? put. the football on, oh I don't know, a FOOTBALL CHANNEL?!? Millions of us look forward to our Corrie routine! Raaaaaaar," raged a fourth.

EastEnders fans are not happy (BBC/Guy Levy)

The simple reason is that football brings in the viewers in their millions, at a time when the popularity of soaps is beginning to dwindle.

The Euros final attracted an estimated 31 million viewers in the UK, which is enormous compared to the half of dozen million currently averaged by Corrie for example.

The other big issue is that the soaps can be watched at any time with little impact, whereas football is a lot better if it's watched live.

There may be a long-term more to putting the soap straight on digital platforms so viewers can binge at their own leisure.

During the Euros, EastEnders, Coronation Street and Emmerdale all put a week's worth of episodes on BBC iPlayer and the ITV Hub on a Monday as well as airing them on normal TV.

The BBC also extended this for EastEnders during the Olympic Games in Tokyo last summer.

The future of soaps could be that we all just watch them when we want online, so there will be no crossover with the football.

*EastEnders airs tonight on BBC One at 8pm and Emmerdale on ITV at 7pm

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