Cut Backs At Coronation Street

Three characters in ITV1’s key ratings winner Coronation Street have been sacked from the show and tabloid speculation today suggests that a further eight could be cut in an attempt to revive ratings.

A spokeswoman for Granada, which produces the soap, today confirmed that Matt Ramsden, Clare McGinn and Naomi Russell were leaving the soap and said: “The cuts have nothing to do with ratings. Coronation Street attracted more viewers than the BBC’s EastEnders 41 out of 52 weeks last year and the cuts are part of the natural evolution of the show.”

The spokesperson dismissed reports that a further eight characters were facing the sack as “pure speculation” and said: “The show continues to be a ratings winner for ITV1.”

Coronation Street regularly draws large audiences to ITV1 but the show has seen ratings decline over the last decade (see below). In the early nineties typical high-end ratings hovered between 15 and 20 million but this figure has fallen over the years and the show now attracts around 14 million viewers for top rated editions.

ITV1’s loss of ground to rival BBC1 has been well documented recently (see BBC Claims Ratings Victory Over ITV), with figures for 2001 showing that across all hours more people watched BBC1 than ITV1. BBC1 is also claiming to have beaten ITV1 in the Christmas Day ratings with the festive editions of Only Fools and Horses (20.3m viewers) and EastEnders (14.6m viewers) attracting significantly larger audiences than ITV1’s highest rating programme of the day, which was Coronation Street (12m viewers) (see Interactive Top Of The Pops Is A Hit).

Granada: 020 7620 1620 www.granada.co.uk

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