Coronation Street and Emmerdale to air crossover episode
Coronation Street and Emmerdale have announced a one-off crossover episode, to launch ITV1’s new “power hour of soap” in January 2026.
ITV’s flagship soaps Coronation Street and Emmerdale have announced this morning that they will come together for a one-off special episode to launch the broadcaster’s new power hour of soap which begins on ITV1 and STV in January 2026.
For the first time in British soap history, the unprecedented hour-long episode will see characters from both soaps meet each other, in a unique celebration of the soap genre.
From January next year, a new schedule will see the two soaps air five days a week, with Emmerdale airing at 8pm, followed by Coronation Street at 8:30pm, on ITV1 and STV.
To herald the beginning of the new scheduling pattern, both soaps will mark the occasion in spectacular style, as the combined production teams embark on an ambitious stunt that will have everlasting consequences for everyone involved.
The distinctive worlds of Emmerdale and Coronation Street will merge for one night only in a ‘mash-up’ of the two iconic communities of Emmerdale and Weatherfield.
While it hasn’t yet been revealed how the two shows will come together, a press release for the announcement explained that “the producers, scriptwriters and production teams have conceived an ingenious way of linking the two universes, but with characters then returning to the soaps they are renowned for inhabiting in Manchester and Yorkshire.”
The hour-long episode will be self-contained, but the consequences of the high-stakes drama will have repercussions for both communities and see them linked forever. The special episode will also see the departure of some “familiar faces”, while it’s been teased that “exciting new characters” will arrive into both soaps.
Each soap will then return to its new normal pattern of transmission. Gone are the hour-long episodes, and instead each soap will air for 30 minutes each evening – Emmerdale episodes at 8pm, and Coronation Street episodes at 8.30pm. Episodes will continue to drop each morning at 7am on ITVX and STV Player, before transmission that evening.
Coronation Street currently airs on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 8-9pm, and moved to three hour-long episodes a week in March 2022.
Emmerdale currently airs at 7.30pm on weekdays, with half-hour episodes on Monday–Wednesday and Friday, an an hour-long episode on Thursdays.
The change comes as a result of audience research, which showed that the two soaps’ 30-minute episodes attracted higher audiences in 2024 than their hour-long editions. The new shorter episodes have been described as delivering “more digestible instalments of continuing drama that better fits with changing viewer habits.”
Viewers will also get to play a part in the special episode, as producers are inviting the audience to choose which two characters – one from each soap – they would like to see meet and interact in a scene.
Details of this initiative will be launched in June via Coronation Street and Emmerdale’s Instagram, Facebook and TikTok accounts.