It's interesting that David Liddiment (of all people) should write a piece of this very nature since he was Coronation Street's producer at the time when a third episode was introduced on Fridays. He reveals that there was strong commercial pressure for Granada to do this because of the dominance of LWT at weekends, though at the time, to quote: "There was a great deal of anxiety then about whether the extra episode would damage ITV's most precious asset. I was confident it would not with the right investment".
Fast forward to the present day and Coronation Street is now being shown all over the schedule by comparison, with seven episodes shown last week (three on one night alone); Coronation Street has progressed from being a 'precious asset' to 'just another soap' being used as a tool to acheive ratings dominance, and it is arguable that Brookside and Emmerdale collectively assisted to breach this psychological barrier in terms of quality versus quantity in the minds of channel schedulers.
Although the BBC has not been entirely blameless in the 'soap wars', it should be noted that it was commercial pressure combined with a weakened regulatory framework which encouraged ITV to further increase the scheduling of soap operas towards its current (and excessive) level. Soap addicts may be now well catered for (mainly) but it's bad news for the quality and variety of British broadcasting in general, and even in the plot lines of the soaps themselves large and visible cracks are starting to show as a result.
