The Chase repeats are defeating Coronation Street and Emmerdale – should we be worried?

For Corrie and Emmerdale, The Chase is over? (Picture: Metro/ITV) Have you ever been watching an episode of The Chase and getting very smug about how many answers you’re getting right, only to realise it’s (yet another) repeat? If you’re like me, you’ll keep up the deceit and wow everyone with your performance in the Final Chase, but still, I’d prefer to be watching new episodes of everyday heroes wiping the floor with vixens and beasts. The growing reliance on repeats by ITV is a separate (but much needed) conversation, but it turns out that repeats of The Chase are almost as lucrative viewer wise as brand new episodes. Great for ITV – in some ways. Less great for their flagship soaps Coronation Street and Emmerdale when you glance at overnight ratings and see that said repeat of a gameshow has trounced them in the viewing figures. Time was that the three main soaps were utterly unbeatable in the overnights stakes, only ever really toppled by something called the Word Cup (no, me neither) and perhaps a final of I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here! Now they lounge at the bottom of the top 10, even if they make it at all, behind quiz shows, The One Show and other programmes that just a couple of years ago, wouldn’t have expected to be watched more live than the soaps. Should we be concerned? Well, potentially. Should be be in a panic? Absolutely not. The drama in the Dales is gripping – but is it gripping enough of us? (Picture: ITV) To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Live, appointment to watch TV is a different beast these days – and eyes of TV bosses are more than ever swerving to the more important numbers. The consolidates and the online streams. It’s worth remembering that most viewers save for your hardcore lot (ie me) don’t pay any attention to viewing figures – they don’t care. Why should they? They find a show the like, they watch it, they move on with their life. It’s a joyful, oblivious existence and one that I yearn for from my pre editor of the UK’s best soap coverage past life. Ask Metro Use AI to go deeper into the stories you care about – powered by Metro and trusted publications. So for those uninitiated, the consolidated number is everything crammed together – live views, online streams, catch-up, basically everything included no matter how a fan watches, whereas the overnight we have spoken of takes account only the live TV viewing. Which changes things for many shows, some which can add 2 million or even more to their overall totals. For a show like the Chase, you want to watch it with your tea, crying out answers while spraying bangers and mash across the table. You aren’t logging onto ITVX and bingeing a week’s worth. So, particularly with repeats, The Chase isn’t seeing a huge uplift – their overnights are relatively close to the consolidated final outcome. I hate it when the Chaser wins! (Picture: ITV) And this is where the soaps push forward again, and leave one of Bradley Walsh’s 18 shows in their wake again. From overnights as low as 1.8 million recently, Corrie and Emmerdale find themselves often soaring beyond 4m. This, you’ll agree, is much healthier. Where the soaps have lost live TV viewing, they have regained through their embracing of first look in the morning episodes and availability for catching up and bingeing online. In fact, judging by figures that ITV have provided me with, it seems they are continuing to grow from this model, a very reassuring stat for us soap lovers. Clarified by a wonderfully helpful representative: ‘Soap viewing has seen significant year-on-year increases on ITVX across the whole of 2026 as viewers enjoy the flexibility to be able to watch Coronation Street and Emmerdale via the streaming platform, which I feel explains the current overnights. ‘On the record for January to September Coronation Street viewing is up +26% on ITVX, rising to +31% in October. Emmerdale is up +31% from January to September, rising to 41% in October. ‘On consolidation the figures remain consistent as during October more people are choosing to watch on ITVX.’ Don’t panic – Corrie isn’t doomed! (Picture: Metro/ITV) It makes sense to me. If I am engaged with a storyline, I’m not waiting til 8pm to watch it, I’m straight online. If I’m busy, I am bingeing the missed eps together at the end of the week. Very rarely will I be sitting in my front room with the TV on during the soap power hour (or football as it continually displaces the episodes, certainly not a helpful factor). So to that end, the soaps remain vitally important to the channel, to the viewers, and to the feel of UK institution they carry with them. Let’s face it, ITV are not going to drop Coronation Street unless they drop to a single viewer (which would be me, Corrie for life). However, we can’t be complacent. The soaps, either way, are not the juggernauts they once were. Even in overnights, we sometimes see a weekly roundup with the soaps at the foot of the top 10 – in fact earlier in September, Emmerdale dropped off the list entirely. There are a number of explanations for this – water cooler TV such as The Traitors, which airs at the same time, will undoubtedly deal a killer blow. Proving live TV is alive and well with the right show, The Traitors has consolidated through to almost 16 million viewers, one stat jumping out at me being that sometimes over 60% of the TV viewing public are tuned in to Claudia and her iconic costume changes. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video This plunged Emmerdale down around a million on its averages in this particular week, sending them down over half a million based on the year before. Which, if a regular occurence in non-Traitors week, would be a concern. The afore-mentioned schedule changes also play a part. In general though, Emmerdale and Coronation Street are still where the channel will be happy with them, as per the stats earlier. Growth is growth, and, as I have argued for many years (and not just with my bias as an online editor), online is the future. It has to be, through viewing, through availability, through flexibility and through promotion in terms of app visibility and press coverage. But, do the stats reflect where the viewers want them to be? Or will the future provide more problems as the loyal viewers drift away and the occasional ones are the most important? To reference an Alan Partridge scene – The Blame, Trigger Point, Vigil, Blue Lights, Winter, what does that tell you about TV thrillers? There are too many of them. These exceptional dramas generally outrate the soaps, and that’s before we look at what Netflix and rivals are providing, crime based dark comedy The Gentleman being a recent massive success. Trigger Point already does the thriller genre justice (Picture: ITV) So what should the response be? Replicate them, as the shows are trying to do now with endless murders, shocking twists and police and hospital sets used more than the beloved pubs? Complete with slow motion, flashbacks and incidental music. Or, realise that this part of the viewing pie is already taken, and carve out the now missing charm that soaps used to successfully occupy? The soaps need to stop trying to become the next Line of Duty. If viewers wanted to see that, they would watch Line of Duty. Whodunnits are all well and good for Unforgotten, but does every soap storyline need to have a ‘who was in the shadows’, ‘who kidnapped the baby’, ‘who left the permanently hospitalised villain in hospital with a fifth head wound they recover from in under a week?’ I’m not saying that soaps can go back to the quieter and more whimsical episodes of past – yes, there still needs to be powerful oomphs and issue led stories that these shows do well. But at the moment, 24 minute episodes can have four or five massive arcs going on, leaving little time for character building, comedy, and community. They are sanitised both because we stop caring when it happens every week with characters who aren’t developed enough in everyday scenarios or relationships. I know fine that Sarah Platt won’t be found guilty and jailed for many years, just as I knew Roy Cropper would get out too. It’s Sarah and Roy! Of course there’s no real jeopardy there. Less jail, more Rovers please! (Picture: ITV) Nor do I ever believe that the latest ‘I am here to take down Kim Tate’ storyline will lead to the end of Kim Tate. I want to see Roy building relationships, making more of his pillar of the community status, finding unexpected friendships that only he can. I want to see the Platts as a family unit more, without them being jailed, shot and plagued by stalkers. I want more cutting Kim Tate lines, juicy rivalries and being ahead of the game a la Kim of old. No way would this woman keep missing the fact that nearly every newcomer to the village is out to get her. Perhaps the most pressing issue right now isn’t The Chase repeats being watched more of a night than our soaps. Maybe it’s more an opportunity to look at what viewers actually want from their soaps long-term – loyal fans are easier to keep than new fans are to find and keep engaged. Corrie and Emmerdale are here to stay – as are the crime thrillers that out-rate them. There’s a place for both – I just don’t want my soaps to become lower budget police procedurals. Because that’s when the numbers might start becoming more of a problem a few years down the line. Arrow MORE: When are Coronation Street and Emmerdale back as ITV schedules change again? Arrow MORE: Does Thea die in Emmerdale as Kim stabs her? Arrow MORE: Big Brother star breaks down in tears over heartbreaking body struggles: ‘I just spiralled’ The Soaps Newsletter – Weekly Sign up for exclusive spoilers and interviews, handpicked by our Soaps Editor.