British soap opera Coronation Street celebrates 50 years on air

December 12, 2010

Thursday marked the 50th anniversary of British soap opera 's broadcast. The programme, which was created by and developed by  &mdash; now branded on-air as  &mdash; in Manchester, England, was first broadcast on December 9, 1960 on ITV. The original commission was just 13 episodes. Nearly 7,500 episodes later, Coronation Street still broadcasts on.

At least one episode of the programme was broadcast every night between December 6 and December 10; on Thursday, the 50th anniversary was celebrated with a live episode. The major storyline of the week, entitled "Four Funerals and a Wedding", started with a tram crash on Monday, shortly after a gas explosion in a new nearby bar called The Joinery damaged railway tracks.

At its peak, Thursday's one-hour live episode received ratings of approximately 14.9 million viewers &mdash; the highest total for the show for over six years. Within the sixty scenes, the storylines included character prematurely giving birth to a baby girl, who was given the name Hope. lay on his hospital bed as he attempted to say his wedding vows to ; he subsequently flatlined. admitted her affair with to  &mdash; Kevin's wife &mdash; before dying as a result of her injuries. There were virtually no mistakes made in the episode. , the producer, expressed his approval for the episode. "I'm so proud and gobsmacked at how brilliant it looked," he commented. "It was like seeing it for the first time. I'm stunned and amazed."

is the only remaining character from the first episode, always portrayed by. Coronation Street now has its own version of encyclopedia website Wikipedia called Corriepedia, which was launched on May 21, 2008.

Because of this anniversary, numerous special programmes were also broadcast. The first ever episode of Coronation Street was repeated on Monday. On Wednesday-Thursday night Coronation Street: 50 Years, 50 Moments revealed the results of a poll to determine the fifty best Coronation Street moments. A humourous scene featuring character at an  meeting topped the poll. Hunt, portrayed by the late, was also revealed as the most popular character, according to a study by UK magazine . Second-place moment was a storyline involving serial killer. , who portrayed Hillman, commented "Funnily enough because it's all come back it seems to have done me a lot of good. It's kind of an iconic storyline that I was involved in. There were some wonderful blackly humourous lines and the gloves, that slight pantomime element. You could love to hate him. They gave me so many great lines."

Friday also saw the ITV1 broadcast of one-off game show, Coronation Street: The Big 50, a part-entertainment programme. Hosted by, it featured various members of the Coronation Street cast as contestants, split into three teams: "Weatherfield Lads", "Pint Pullers", and "Rovers Regulars" plus a fourth team of celebrity fans, or "Superfans". The "Rovers Regulars" were to become the victors.