The scheduling of ITV soap opera Emmerdale has varied since it was first shown in 1972, increasing from two half-hour episodes a week, with a summer break to six half-hour episodes each week at present.
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From 1977 the series moved out of Daytime, with the majority of ITV regions chosing to accommodate the programme in the 19:00 Tuesday and Thursday slot. Anglia Television, Grampian Television, Thames Television and Westward Television preferred 17:15, with the days sometime changing. Scottish Television broadcast the show along with the network until 1980 when it was moved to 17:15 on Monday and Friday in-between Crossroads which Television South West also did from 1982 - 1985. From January 1984, Anglia Television, Grampian Television and Thames Television showed Emmerdale Farm in a 17:15 Monday and Tuesday slot with Scottish Television following suit in October 1984. In 1985 Thames Television/Television South West moved series back to 7pm in line with the network.
From 6 January 1988, all ITV regions networked the show in the Wednesday and Thursday 18.30 slot. Anglia Television and Central Television chose to move the programme to 19:00 on Tuesdays and Thursdays in February 1989, This was the first time Anglia had screened Emmerdale Farm in the 19:00 slot, Central were simply returning to the slots they used until December 1987, for a period Anglia and Central saw episodes one week later than other regions.
From January 1990 all other regions followed the Central and Anglia schedule in the familiar Tuesday and Thursday 19:00 slot.
All compaines continued to broadcast at 7pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Between 1993 and 1995, Emmerdale was shown in a daytime slot with a repeat of the previous evening episode, in certain regions. By 1 January 1997, ITV had opted to increase their output to three episodes a week with the additional episode being screened on Wednesdays
Scottish Television used the 19:00 slot to broadcast daily regional programmes, including Take the High Road resulting in Emmerdale moving to 17:10, from early September 1993 until early 1998 when the show went back to the 19:00 slot.
From 2 October 2000, a further two episodes were added on a Monday and Friday evening, thus making "Emmerdale" a daily soap. A sixth episode begin to air on Sundays in 2002.
In January 2008, like Coronation Street, ITV announced they would cease airing Emmerdale on a Sunday night , this meant that Emmerdale would still air at the same time on a Monday–Friday, but the Tuesday episode would run until 20:00 because of the change. Producers of the soap revealed that "each hour-long episode on Tuesday will be specially written and won't be two half-hour ones put together.[1] Each Tuesday episode was given an episode title but this practice was stopped in August 2008.
On July 8th 2009, ITV announced that they were to revamp their schedule yet again. This time, Emmerdale's Tuesday hour-long episode was reduced back down to 30 minutes, and replaced with a second Thursday episode. Emmerdale and EastEnders ratings have improved thanks to this, with Emmerdale getting 7.7 million, its highest in over 6 months, on 1 October 2009.[2]
Old episodes of Emmerdale Farm were repeated in the 1990s on Sky Soap, the episodes shown in March 1997 were from 1973, but by the time Sky Soap ended in April 1999 the episodes shown were from 1988.
In July 1998, episodes from the first episode of the renamed soap were repeated on Granada Plus, and the 2001 episodes were being shown when the channel ended in November 2004. the repeats ended with Episode #2827 - Thursday 4 January 2001.
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