Emmerdale
- For Emmerdale, the 1994 debut album by The Cardigans, see Emmerdale (album).
Emmerdale (known as Emmerdale Farm until 1989) is a British television soap opera set in the fictional Yorkshire village of the same name (known as Beckindale until 1994). Much of the action takes place within the village pub, the fictional The Woolpack. The show was created by Kevin Laffan. It is the third ranking soap opera on British television, behind the ITV's Coronation Street and the BBC's EastEnders.
The series is produced by Yorkshire Television and broadcast on the ITV network, and was first aired on October 16, 1972. It was originally conceived and broadcast as a daytime programme in an afternoon slot, before in the 1980s, moving to its current position as an early evening programme.
The village itself was originally played by the real village of Arncliffe in Littondale, one of the less frequented valleys of the Yorkshire Dales. In exterior shots the town's The Falcon hotel was used to represent the fictional Woolpack Hotel. Eventually the location of the shooting location became publicly known, which is perhaps what prompted the move to the village of Esholt. This location also became a tourist attaction. Now a purpose built set in Harewood is used. Location footage of the fictional market town of Hotten is shot in Otley. The Benton Park School in Rawdon and the primary school in Farnley are also used as shooting locations. Follow this link http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showthreaded.php?Cat=0&Board=EarthTourism&Number=233786&Searchpage=1&Main=233786&Words=+pennine&topic=&Search=true#Post233786 and if you have Google Earth click on "Open This Placemark" to go to a high resolution satellite image of the YTV set on the Harewood estate.
Origins of Emmerdale
Emmerdale Farm was originally modelled on the revolutionary soap-opera The Riordans, made by RTÉ, Ireland's broadcaster, from the 1960s to the mid 1970s. The Riordans broke the mould for soap operas by being filmed largely out of doors on a farm owned in the storyline by Tom and Mary Riordan, rather than, as was the norm in British and American soap operas, being almost totally filmed in studios. (Even 'outdoor' scenes were traditionally filmed indoors). The Riordans pioneered 'live' filming on a farm, with real farm animals, actors driving tractors. In the 1960s and 1970s, outdoor filming of television programmes using OBUs (Outdoor Broadcast Units) was in its infancy, due to the far higher costs involved, and the reliance on things like the weather that were out of the control of the programme makers.
The success of The Riordans showed that a soap opera could be filmed out of doors. Yorkshire Television sent people to The Riordans set in County Meath in Ireland to see the making of the programme at first hand. On the basis of what they saw, the station began preparations for its own rural-based, outdoor-filmed, soap opera, called Emmerdale Farm. As with The Riordans, it was to be focused on one family, the Sugdens, with the name of the farm becoming the name of the show. As time went on, the show's focus moved to the nearby village of Beckindale. To reflect this change, the show's name was changed in 1989. Coinciding with the name change was the introduction of the Tates, who would emerge as the soap's leading family in the 1990s, overshadowing the Sugdens. In turn, the Tate family has been supplanted, with the Dingle and King families now taking centre stage.
Plane crash storyline
Until 1993, the show was largely ignored by press and viewers alike in the face of much more well known soaps such as Coronation Street, EastEnders and Brookside. However, a sensational plotline involving a plane crashing on to the village of Beckindale (which killed many long standing characters and led to the onscreen renaming of Beckindale to Emmerdale), gained a lot of press and audience attention and cemented the show's place among the top UK soaps. This plot line attracted controversy due to the similarity to the Lockerbie disaster: it was aired near to the time of the fifth anniversary of that disaster.
Popularity and scheduling
The show is now ranked high in the British popularity stakes, being outdone regularly only by the two major mainstream British soaps, EastEnders and Coronation Street. However, recently, special hour long episodes which have competed with EastEnders have won the battle for viewing figures but on the 1st of December 2005 EastEnders won their first head to head battle with Emmerdale in a long time coming out on top with 200,000 more viewers.
The programme is also popular in Sweden, where it has been shown since the 1970s (originally on TV2, and then on commercial channel TV4 since 1994), and in Finland, where it is currently aired five days a week by MTV3. TV3 also show it in Ireland.
Emmerdale is notable for being the UK's (and possibly the world's) first television soap opera to regularly produce six episodes a week (screening every weekday night at 7 PM, and Sunday 6.50 PM), a practice which began in early 2004.
The programme is also aired in Canada on the CBC, three days a week at 2:00 PM EST (Eastern Standard Time).
Disasters in Emmerdale
In addition to the sensational plane crash storyline, the Woolpack was blown up in the 1990s, and recently a jeep crash led to a massive explosion that claimed the life of Max King.
Other disaster include:
- 1996 - Dave Glover dies in a fire after attending Biff and Linda's wedding
- 1997 - Frank Tate dies
- 2000 - Pete and Butch are killed in a bus crash
- 2000 - Long-running character Sarah Sugden dies in a barn fire
- 2001 - Mrs Strickland is killed in a car accident
- 2002 - Don and Paddy are killed in a big bus crash
- 2002 - Chris Tate Commits suicide, framing Charity.
- 2002 - Church is burnt down by a mad Zoe.
- 2003 - Trisha Dingle dies in hospital after being crushed by the Woolpack chimney in a storm.