EastEnders, Coronation Street and Emmerdale all see HUGE drop in ratings as viewers turn to streaming sites instead

EASTENDERS, Coronation Street and Emmerdale have all seen a drop in ratings as viewers have turned to streaming services like Netflix instead.

Over the last four years, Corrie’s audience figures have dropped by 19%, while Emmerdale has dropped by 22% and EastEnders is down by 37%.

According to The Mirror, the soaps are often beaten by shows such as Bradley Walsh’s Breaking Dad on ITV or The Repair Shop on BBC.

They report that EastEnders used to have 6.6million regular viewers in 2017, but by 2020 it had 5 million.

Corrie meanwhile had an average of 7.6 million viewers that year but by last year had 6.7 million.

Rating expert Stephen Price told Broadcast ­magazine, he said: “The soaps’ dominance of traditional TV appears to be on the wane, no longer impervious to challenge from the linear opposition and losing fans to the streamers.

“With volume falling faster than overall TV viewing and the challenge of other genres more keenly felt, soaps’ all-conquering prowess is ­disappearing.”

At the end of 2019, the UK  had 14.3m streaming subscriptions but now has 17.5m.

ITV said: “ITV soaps are consistently amongst the most-watched programmes in primetime and they are in the top three most streamed on ITV Hub.”

The BBC said younger fans watched on laptops or phones, which do not get included in the ratings figures.