Overview
- ITV replaced the usual Tuesday evening soap slots on June 9 with live coverage of England v Ukraine, removing Coronation Street and Emmerdale from their normal 8pm and 8:30pm airtimes.
- To make up the missed episodes ITV scheduled Coronation Street to air an hour earlier on Wednesday and both soaps to run extended, hour-long episodes on Friday night.
- The disruption follows ITV’s rollout earlier this year of a ‘power hour’ schedule that moved soaps to five 30-minute weekday episodes and shifted streaming windows to ITVX.
- Viewers reacted with complaints on social media and local reporting said the Tuesday Coronation Street episode was not available on ITVX or YouTube as it normally would be.
- Broadcasters warn additional England friendlies and the World Cup kickoff will cause further weekday schedule changes, which could mean more pre-emptions and shifted streaming windows in the coming days.