Emmerdale (known as Emmerdale Farm until 1989) is a British television soap opera that is broadcast on ITV. The show is set in Emmerdale (known as Beckindale until 1994), a fictional village in the Yorkshire Dales. Created by Kevin Laffan, Emmerdale Farm was first broadcast on 16 October 1972. Interior scenes have been filmed at the Leeds Studios since its inception. Exterior scenes were first filmed in Arncliffe in Littondale, and the series may have taken its name from Amerdale, an ancient name of Littondale. Exterior scenes were later shot at Esholt, but are now shot at a purpose-built set on the Harewood estate.
The series originally aired during the afternoon and was intended to be a three-month television series. However, more episodes were ordered and transmitted during the daytime until 1978, when it was moved to an early-evening prime time slot in most regions. In the late 1980s, a new production team oversaw the name change and introduced more dramatic storylines, as well as increasing the frequency of episodes. As a result of the changes, viewers and popularity surrounding the soap increased and Emmerdale began to be considered as a major British soap opera. The programme began broadcasting in high definition on 10 October 2011, and in 2016, Emmerdale won the award for Best British Soap at the British Soap Awards for the first time. Since January 2019, "classic episodes" of Emmerdale have been broadcast twice daily on ITV3.
The first episode aired on 16 October 1972 at 1:30pm, and began with the Sugden family convening in the fictional village of Beckindale for the funeral of a relative. Peter Willes, the then-head of serial dramas at Yorkshire Television, did not like that the soap began with a funeral as he found it to be a "very downbeat way to start" and "a big switch-off". However, Laffan pushed the concept as he felt that a funeral would be the best option from a dramatic viewpoint. The show's early years as Emmerdale Farm centred on the Sugden family and rural farm life. The show was originally broadcast twice a week in the afternoon and was regarded by critics as a "sleepy soap" where not much happened. After its initial 13-week run, the positive viewer response led to an increase to 26 weeks and then a 6-month run, which led to the eventual year-long screening of the soap. The increase in episode output was accompanied by a move to a late-afternoon time slot. By 1977, it was moved to a prime time evening slot in most ITV regions.
By 1993, Emmerdale was into its third decade on the air and December 1993 saw a major turning point in the show's history, when an episode featured a plane crashing into the village of Beckindale, killing four main characters, giving Emmerdale its highest-ever audience of 18 million and marking its transformation into a major prime time soap opera. The plane crash "allowed the writers to get rid of much dead wood, and reinvent the soap virtually from scratch," which included survivors changing the village name from "Beckindale" to "Emmerdale". The production team had continually had issues with the fictional village's geography, but they found that the plane crash allowed them to introduce a village that had continuity. Since the plane crash, Emmerdale has had increasingly dramatic storylines and glamorous characters. In 1994, former Coronation Street producer Mervyn Watson was hired to inject more humour into the show. New long-term characters, such as the Windsor and Dingle families, were also introduced in the 1990s. The Tates became the soap's leading family during the decade.
The early and mid-2000s saw the introduction of major long-term characters, including the King family and Cain Dingle (Jeff Hordley) and Charity Dingle (Emma Atkins).
In March 2019, an episode featuring an exclusively female cast and crew was aired in support of International Women's Day. Executive producer Jane Hudson said that the episode was "a great opportunity for Emmerdale to show the female talent we have both in front and behind the camera." In 2020, the production and filming of Emmerdale was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to prevent the programme from coming off air, the episodes shown per week were halved from six to three. They were later reduced to two episodes a week, but have since returned to the normal schedule. In September 2020, it was announced that there would be a "big autumn shake-up"; one of the changes included the casting of Paige Sandhu as Meena Jutla. She was later confirmed to be a serial killer and has been responsible for the murders of Leanna Cavanagh (Mimi Slinger), Andrea Tate (Anna Nightingale) and Ben Tucker (Simon Lennon). All of the actors involved expressed a decision to leave the soap and their exits were incorporated into Meena's serial killer arc, a storyline which has seen Sandhu awarded Best Villain at the 2021 Inside Soap Awards.
On 12 October 2021, it was announced that Emmerdale would partake in a special crossover event involving multiple British soaps to promote the topic of climate change ahead of the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference. The event was first suggested by Emmerdale's executive producer Jane Hudson. It was confirmed that a social media clip featuring two characters from Emmerdale would be discussed in Coronation Street, while Emmerdale itself would refer to events in Casualty.
Hudson was replaced internally by Iain Macleod, who was promoted from Coronation Streets executive producer to overseeing both soaps. At the same time, former producer Sophie Roper was reappointed. She confirmed a new era for Emmerdale from 2024, with various cast changes and "bold and ground-breaking drama". The initial cast changes saw short-term characters including Ethan Anderson (Emile John), Nicky Miligan (Lewis Cope) and Suni Sharma (Brahmdeo Shannon Ramana) written out of the soap. However, they later also removed characters with lengthy tenures, including Amelia Spencer (Daisy Campbell), Wendy Posner (Susan Cookson), Will Taylor (Dean Andrews), Brenda Walker (Lesley Dunlop) and Leyla Harding (Roxy Shahidi). Uploading episodes early onto ITVX was introduced in 2024, to give viewers more flexibility in when they want to watch the series. This was inspired by a 30% rise of viewing figures for Emmerdale on ITVX.
The Sugdens and their relatives, the Merricks and the Skilbecks, were at the centre of the show during the series' first two decades in the 1970s and 1980s (the Emmerdale Farm era). The Sugdens, owners of Emmerdale Farm, were its first family. Many of its members, and those of the Merrick and Skilbeck families, have left or been killed off since the mid-1990s. Sugdens remaining in the village are Jack's daughter, Victoria Sugden (Isabel Hodgins), her son Harry, and Andy Sugden's (Kelvin Fletcher) daughter Sarah (Katie Hill).
December 1984 saw the arrival of Caroline Bates; her teenage children, Kathy and Nick, followed in late 1985. Caroline left the show in 1989, returning for guest appearances in 1991, 1993–1994 and 1996. Nick was written out of the show when he was sentenced to ten years in prison in 1997. Kathy and her niece, Alice, remained in the village until late 2001; by then, Kathy had outlived two husbands. The wealthy Tates were introduced as the new owners of Home Farm in 1989, with the family consisting of Frank Tate (Norman Bowler), wife Kim Tate (Claire King) and children Chris Tate (Peter Amory) and Zoe Tate (Leah Bracknell).
Other families followed: the middle-class Windsors in 1993, known as the Hope family after Viv Hope's (Deena Payne) 2001 marriage to Bob Hope (Tony Audenshaw), and the ne'er-do-well Dingle family in 1994. The Tate, Windsor-Hope and Dingle families predominated during the 1990s and 2000s. The era's storylines included the 1993 plane crash, the 1994 Home Farm siege, the 1998 post-office robbery, the 2000 bus crash, the 2003–04 storm and the 2006 King show-home collapse. By the mid- to late-2000s, the last of the Tates (Zoe, daughter Jean Tate and nephew Joseph) had emigrated to New Zealand. In 2009, Chris Tate's ex-wife Charity and their son Noah returned to the village. In 2017, Joe Tate returned to the village. In 2018, Kim Tate returned to the village after nearly 20-year absence, and in the following year her son James returned as well. Members of the Windsor-Hope family left the village in early 2006, and Viv Hope was killed off in a village fire in February 2011 after nearly 18 years on the show. As of 2024, only Donna Windsor's daughter, April, and the Hope branch of the family (Bob and his daughter Cathy) remain.
The King family arrived in 2004, as the Tates departed. All but Jimmy King, his half-sister, Scarlett Nicholls, and his three children, Elliott, Angelica and Carl, were killed off. By 2018, most of the Dingles still remained, having actually increased their numbers in Emmerdale over the years. Their circumstances had changed in their two decades in the village; Chas Dingle owned half of The Woolpack, with Charity Dingle owning the other half, and Marlon was a chef there. In 2014, the Dingles, Bartons and Whites were the central families; the Bartons are a farming family, and the Whites owned Home Farm. In 2022, Daniel Kilkelly of Digital Spy stated that the Dingles were "arguably the best-known family from the current cast."
On 8 July 2009, ITV announced that they were to revamp their schedule yet again. This time, Emmerdales Tuesday hour-long episode was reduced back down to 30 minutes, and replaced with a second Thursday episode. Emmerdale and EastEnders ratings improved due to this, with Emmerdale getting 7.7 million, its highest in over 6 months, on 1 October 2009. Between April and August 2019, ITV began airing an additional episode on Tuesdays at 8pm, bringing the total number of episodes a week to seven, but it was reduced back to six due to the heavy amount of filming for cast and crew involved. In March 2020, due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, filming was suspended, and the episodes transmitted per week were decreased to three on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. For three weeks of June 2020, two episodes of Emmerdale were transmitted per week in order to preserve episodes. At the end of June, episodes returned to three per week. In September, Emmerdale returned to its regular transmission count of six weekly episodes. In January 2022, it was announced that after 32 years, Emmerdales transmission time would move to 7:30pm, due to the ITV Evening News receiving a longer duration, with Thursday's episodes merged into one hour-long slot. The new scheduling began on Monday 7 March 2022. The change meant that Emmerdale once again clashed with EastEnders, this time being a daily occurrence.
From 2026 onwards, Emmerdales scheduling is again set to change. It was confirmed that half an hour of content would be dropped from the schedule. Another change was the timeslot, with the soap set to air every weekday at 8pm for 30 minutes, with Coronation Street airing afterwards. ITV's Managing Director of Media and Entertainment Kevin Lygo explained: "research insights show us that soap viewers are increasingly looking to the soaps for their pacey storytelling. Streaming-friendly, 30 minute episodes better provide the opportunity to meet viewer expectations for storyline pace, pay-off and resolution."
The series has appeared in Sweden as Hem till gården ("Home to the Farm") since the 1970s – originally on TV2, and since 1994, on TV4. Emmerdale is the most-watched daytime non-news programme in Sweden, attracting from 150,000 to 200,000 viewers daily. The programme appears in
After the soap began transmitting episodes 52 weeks of the year, the production needed more space. This led to the purchase of a four-floor mill in Farsley for £2 million, which a building team converted into the Emmerdale Production Centre. Construction of another purpose-built set began on the Harewood estate in 1996 and it has been used since 1997, after being opened by Prime Minister John Major. The Harewood set is a replica of Esholt, with minor alterations. Filming returned to Esholt for a one-off episode in 2016 for a special episode centred around Ashley Thomas' (John Middleton) dementia which aired in December 2016. The location was used to represent Ashley's onset of dementia to the viewer. Location filming is also done in the City of Leeds and other West Yorkshire locations; scenes set in the fictional market town of Hotten are currently filmed in Otley, and previously in Farsley. Benton Park School in Rawdon and the primary school in Farnley were also used for filming. Interiors are primarily filmed at Yorkshire Television's Emmerdale Production Centre in Leeds, next to Yorkshire's Leeds Studios. Leeds Studios location Google Earth
Four farms have been featured on Emmerdale over the years:
The village storm on 1 January 2004 attracted 11.19 million viewers. 18 May 2004 episode in which Jack was shot by his adopted son, Andy, attracted 8.27 million viewers. On 17 March 2005, 9.39 million watched Shelley Williams fall from the Isle of Arran ferry. Zoe Tate (Leah Bracknell) left the show after 16 years on 22 September 2005 before 8.58 million viewers, marking her departure by blowing up Home Farm. On 13 July 2006, the Kings River house collapse was seen by 6.90 million viewers. Sadie King (Patsy Kensit) and Cain Dingle (Jeff Hordley) left on 21 September 2006, before an audience of 8.57 million viewers. On Christmas Day 2006, 7.69 million saw Tom King (Kenneth Farrington) murdered on his wedding day. Billy Hopwood (David Crellin) crashed his truck into a lake on 1 February 2007, attracting 8.15 million viewers. The end of the "Who Killed Tom King?" storyline on 17 May 2007, had an audience of 8.92 million.
On 14 January 2010, 9.96 million saw Mark Wylde shot dead by wife Natasha Wylde. Natasha's 27 October confession to daughter Maisie attracted an audience of nearly 8 million. On 13 January 2011, 9.15 million saw a fire kill Viv Hope and Terry Woods. The live 40th-anniversary episode on 17 October 2012, drew an audience of 8.83 million. On 16 October 2013, 8.15 million watched Cameron Murray take the occupants of The Woolpack hostage and shoot Alicia. The next day, 7.65 million viewers saw Cameron die. In January 2022, their overnight viewing figures saw Emmerdale become the most watched soap opera in the United Kingdom. They beat Coronation Street, a fellow ITV soap that had consistently beaten Emmerdale in the ratings. The rise in viewers was accredited to Meena's serial killer storyline.
Another storyline that attracted a strong viewer response is an arc that saw Meena Jutla (Paige Sandhu) be revealed as a serial killer, with her confessing to two off-screen murders, as well as murdering regulars Leanna Cavanagh (Mimi Slinger), Andrea Tate (Anna Nightingale) and Ben Tucker (Simon Lennon). Meena immediately caused division in viewers' opinions from her introduction, and after Meena is revealed to be a serial killer, critics and viewers began to praise the character and Sandhu's acting skills, with many believing Meena had become a "top soap serial killer".
Duncan Lindsay of the Metro described Meena as "the most unique and entertaining soap villain ever" and admitted that he wanted her to get away with her crimes due to her strong presence on Emmerdale. Many viewers praised Meena, and credited her with being the most interesting part of Emmerdale, while some complained about the violence shown in her murderous scenes, with Ofcom receiving hundreds of complaints about her brutality.
Despite criticism, Meena regularly Twitter trends and garnered an online fandom, the 'Meeniacs', who felt that the soap would not be the same following her exit. Her storyline also increased Emmerdales ratings to the point of becoming the most-watched soap opera in the United Kingdom. In September 2021, it was announced that Sandhu had been nominated for Best Newcomer and Best Villain at the 2021 Inside Soap Awards. Meena murdering Leanna was also nominated for Best Show-Stopper. Sandhu went on to win the award for Best Villain.
1986–1999: Revamp and becoming a major British soap
2000–2011: Continued success and more episodes
2012–2021: Anniversary celebrations and events
2022–present: Producer and cast changes
Setting and characters
Families
Storylines
Broadcast
United Kingdom
International broadcast
Production
Filming locations
Lindley Farm Bank Side Farm Brookland Farm
Sponsors
Reception
Ratings
Critical and viewer response
See also
External links
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