Coronation Street has been airing on ITV since December 9, 1960. It’s now considered the worst’s longest-running television soap opera and has been listed in the Guinness World Records, which is quite the feat. Since the show’s been around for a long time, there’s a lot of things that most people don’t know about the soap opera affectionately referred to as Corrie – here are 12 things:
12. The Foundation of ITV
In the 1950s, a few commercial television entrepreneurs were interested in offering a little competition to the networks owned by the British state (i.e. BBC). Thanks to The Television Act in 1954, Independent Television (ITV) was able to bust up the monopolies held by the various BBC broadcasts. ITV took to the airwaves in 1955, and after working through several startups, the organization hit a serious stride in competing with the BBC in 1960. On December 9th, Coronation Street debuted at 7 p.m. to critical pans. Ken Irwin, a popular writer for the Daily Mirror, suggested the show was so bad it would only last three weeks. He was wrong and now the show became a staple in the British modern era, as audiences were drawn to the “ordinary” characters.
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