NTAs shock as EastEnders LOSES best soap to ITV rival

THE National Television Awards delivered a shock as EastEnders lost best soap to an ITV rival.

The BBC soap went up against Emmerdale, Coronation Street, Hollyoaks and Casualty in the Serial Drama category at tonight's annual awards ceremony.

Having won the category last year, the stars were clearly hoping to make it a back to back win.

But despite putting up a strong fight with big storylines like Keanu Taylor's death, The Six's subsequent cover up and the likes of Cindy Beale's shock return, it seems soap fans preferred the action in the fictional Yorkshire village.

Emmerdale has also had some big storylines this past year including Belle Dingle's harrowing abuse at the hands of husband Tom King, as well as the love triangle between Charity Dingle, Mackenzie Boyd and Chloe Harris leading to their car plunging over a ravine.

Paralympians Kadeena Cox and Dame Sarah Storey announced the news at the ceremony at London's O2 Arena tonight, with the Emmerdale cast going wild.

But some viewers at home were not as impressed by the result.

Taking to X - formerly Twitter - one raged: "how the actual f*** have emmerdale just won that."

Another wrote: "In what world did Eastenders not win that??"

A third tweeted: "Emmerdale?! Wow."

Meanwhile a fourth moaned: "on a real, casualty has been robbed there .."

EastEnders was dealt a further blow as it also missed out on the Serial Drama Performance gong, despite having two of the five nominations.

Angela Wynter was nominated for her role as Yolande Trueman, while Diane Parish also got a nod for her work as Denise Fox.

But it was Peter Ash who triumphed for his role as Paul Foreman in Coronation Street.

ITV viewers were left in floods of tears on Monday night when Paul passed away after a tragic battle with MND, and many clearly felt Peter deserved the award for the heart-wrenching storyline.

The National Television Awards airs on ITV1 and is available on ITVX.