The Corriedale special marks a big year for soaps on ITV
Emmerdale star, and former Coronation Street fave, Chris Bisson on the red carpet launching ITV’s Corriedale(Image: Gerard Binks)
An ITV Emmerdale star has issued a ‘no more moaning’ message.
Chris Bisson, 50, who plays Jai in Emmerdale, made the admission during the red carpet Corriedale launch – marking the special crossover episode of ITV’s Emmerdale and Coronation Street. Corriedale will air on Monday, January 5 at 8pm on ITV1.
A multi-vehicle pile-up will be at the centre of the drama that sees the worlds of Coronation Street and Emmerdale collide for one night only.
Fan favourite characters from both soaps will appear in the episode – 2026 is sure to be a big year for Emmerdale with Corriedale at the forefront of it. The special edition will launch ITV’s new ‘soap power hour’ scheduling pattern for Coronation Street and Emmerdale.
At the start of 2026, fans will see the ‘soap power hour’ begin on ITV with episodes of their legendary soap operas airing Monday to Friday. This now means 30 minute Emmerdale episodes will air at 8pm and 30 minute Coronation Street episodes at 8.30pm. Episodes will continue to drop at 7am on ITVX – before transmission that evening.
At the red carpet Corriedale launch, in Bradford, Chris Bisson opened up about the schedule changes and the milestone episode. Chris, who previously played Vikram, said: “All the fans have been waiting for the two shows to collide and now we get it to kick off our new schedule on ITV. That ‘soap power hour’.
“No more moaning that they are shifting Corrie around because of the football and nobody knows when it is on – all that kind of stuff. We all know where we are up to now – 8pm to 9pm everyday of the week.
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“It is like the old-fashioned way. When I started on Corrie, a quarter of a century ago or something like that, we did half-hours and when we went to three episodes, everyone went ‘oh, that’s too much’.”
The schedule change sees the end of the weekly Emmerdale Thursday one-hour episode – something Chris doesn’t think is a bad thing. He explained: “For me, because we did it every week it didn’t feel special anymore. And, the genre everyone loves is half-hour, it is bitesize.
“I think we can get back to telling stories in a way where you can weave it all together. You see something on-screen and you know it is bubbling. It doesn’t have to be a stunt every Thursday. We just watch the soaps as we love them.”
There’s been some talk of whether we might see a Corriedale follow-up. Chris has implored soap fans to savour the January 2026 episode – as we might not see it again.
Coronation Street and Emmerdale will come together for single episode, Corriedale(Image: ITV)
He said: “We can’t combine the soaps, it is not good in the long run, we are not going to be able to do it. But, it is amazing to bring them together (now), two iconic shows. Those characters, colliding.”
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