Coronation Street and Emmerdale to return to six episodes a week in September
CORONATION Street and Emmerdale are returning to six episodes a week in September.
The ITV soaps have put in strict health and safety controls to ensure production could resume safely during the pandemic.
They have been airing on a reduced schedule with just three episodes each week but now the teams behind the soaps are able to resume full production.
ITV announced the news today in a statement: "We’re very pleased to announce that Coronation Street and Emmerdale will resume airing the normal pattern of six episodes each week from mid-September.
"This is testament to the incredible work that has been achieved in Manchester and Leeds by John Whiston, Managing Director of Continuing Drama and Head of ITV in the North for ITV Studios, and his dedicated and hard-working production teams, crews, writers and actors.
"Both shows continue to film safely whilst adhering to the health and safety guidelines issued by the film and TV industry."
Both soaps managed to remain on air throughout the pandemic while rivals EastEnders and Hollyoaks have taken breaks.
EastEnders will return to four episodes a week in September and is writing in a time jump to explain the passing of time while the show was off air.
Hollyoaks recently ran out of new episodes and will also be off air until September.
Coronation Street is still on course to celebrate its 60th anniversary in September with some huge storylines.
Iain MacLeod recently teased what viewers can expect.
He said: "What we've had to strip out of our planning for the 60th was some of the bigger kind of Hollywood spectacular elements because we just simply didn't have the time after we came back from lockdown to build and install all of the things that we needed to do what we'd originally planned to do.
"We peeled all that away much to my immense relief we discovered that what's below all those layers of Hollywood spectacular are three or four really fantastically good stories."
Iain added: "There's a strong community story in there and community is something that's undergone something of a resurgence under lockdown. It's very important to do a community-focused story around the 60th.
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"We've got a huge human interest story which emerges from something on screen right now that's proved to be very popular with the audience.
"We've got the classic salacious love triangle in there.
"One we've stripped away all the crash, bang, wallop what we've been left with is essential soap viewing."