Overview
- The soaps were moved earlier on Wednesday after England's warm-up match and were dropped from the schedule on Thursday for the World Cup opening ceremony, with hour-long returns planned for Friday evening.
- ITV is showing dozens of premium World Cup matches on ITV1, a rights-driven choice reported to include roughly 51 fixtures and key England games that take precedence over regular programming.
- The changes break the broadcaster's January 'soap power hour' commissioning pattern of 30-minute weeknight episodes that was designed to give viewers predictable half-hour instalments.
- Fans have urged ITV to pre-release full weeks of episodes on ITVX as a mitigation, citing the service's practice of uploading weekly soap box sets during the 2022 World Cup, but ITV has not confirmed a repeat strategy for 2026.
- The schedule shake-up will continue next week with further slot removals for England's tournament matches, and viewers risk compressed story beats, greater spoiler exposure, and harder-to-follow plotlines while live sport is prioritised on ITV1.