I Write When Inspired

Emmerdale Rarepair Week 2025 - Day 2 - Non-canon ship - Aaron and Adam

I am going to pass my licensing exam.

I am going to have a full time job.

I will be able to pay my rent.

I am going to make enough to take my mother to england to tour a bunch of old castles and we might kill each other a little bit but it'll be really fun.

- both itv soaps have had steadily lowering viewership for the last six years (approx - basically steadily lowering through the 2020s, only by around 100,000 per year max, they're all very close)

- corrie's viewership actually increased again in 2025, while emmerdale's didn't (obviously we can't tell if this is a pattern until the end of this year, probably not until the end of 2027)

- corrie's viewership is on average higher than emmerdale's, though that's almost always been the case anyway (and the difference in viewership is a lot lower now than it has been in the past - they have very similar figures now compared to points when there was a difference of several million)

- emmerdale's youtube channel has just under 500,000 subscribers, corrie's has just over 600,000

- all of corrie's episodes from last week have approx. 140k views on youtube, except wednesday's which is at almost 200k, emmerdale's are all just under 100k, except wednesday's which is at 111k

- compared to the episodes for this time last year, emmerdale's are all under or around 50k, and corrie's are pretty much all under or around 50k too

finding out whether they're actually being viewed favourably is a little more difficult since there aren't many episodes rated on imdb anymore, but generally speaking corrie has a higher rating average than emmerdale on there, but crucially that is an average of every rated episode ever, so isn't particularly relevant to now i don't think

Omg! @thatnervouswreck!! 🥰

Thank you for doing this work and sharing!

My mental capacity at the moment is at the very low end but I’ll attempt to answer your ask and share my thoughts 🤣. I also wanted to share your “ask” for others to read and open it up for their thoughts/opinions as well if they care to share them!

I can give you my impression of what I think is the cause for the lower viewership and engagement as someone who unfortunately does not regularly watch Corrie, but has watched Emmerdale on/off (mostly on) since 2008/09.

As you pointed out, there was a steadily lowering of viewership starting in 2020 … hmm, well, I know we joke about it not being Robrondale but the figures don’t lie… when Ryan left so did many viewers, possibly many international viewers. 🤷🏽‍♀️ As an international viewer myself, I can say that even though, I watch Emmerdale before Robron existed, I dropped off for a couple of years after Aaron left in 2012, and it was Robron that drew me back in and had me signing back up for that Britbox sub again! 🤣

And when Ryan left at the end of 2019, I hung in, but with the way they were writing for Aaron, made it a very difficult watch.

Then you have Covid and all that was happening in the world in general, I’m sure all soaps had a significant drop in viewership … but going to be crazy honest, if they still had Robron, I would have been more eager to continue watching, regularly. 🤷🏽‍♀️ (I’m a crazed fan, what can I say lol).

From there, when things started to “get back to normal” I feel like the mass exodus that left the show… just, didn’t come back. And some of us that stuck around became occasional/seasonal viewers as, probably. I definitely dropped in/out for certain storylines.

I would expect that viewership picked back up in 2025 with Robert’s return, there was so much excitement and engagement with his return. And also it made the John’s sl 100x more interesting and took what was once a character many thought just boring and weird, into a very complex villain that people loved to hate, not just hate 😂, I certainly became a fan of his during this time! (See, I can like the villain too, if they are interesting are written well!!). Unfortunately, once John left and Kev was introduced, things were okay for a while, but writing, in my opinion began to feel even more disjointed, plots became even more convoluted and not just for Robron (but again, let’s be real… they draw an audience. 🤭).

There was a lot of promise and hype around Corriedale, but the long drawn out plots in the show after, killed the momentum. Basically…. folks got bored. 🤷🏽‍♀️

I think the show is under the belief that the audience just got fatigued by all the high drama, misery plots. And because there was one SL and character that injected some (questionable) humor, they latched onto that character and those moments of levity. And now, they are really banking on his popularity to increase viewership; and look I’m no TV exec but I think this is the equivalent to putting all your eggs in one basket. Some are bound to get cracked. 😒