ITV soap boss Iain MacLeod has shared an update on what’s next for Coronation Street and Emmerdale – and it sounds like even more changes are coming for the iconic shows. The long-running dramas launched an exciting new era with a bang last month, as the epic Corriedale crossover marked the beginning of a new five-episodes-per-week scheduling pattern.

In a new interview, MacLeod revealed that a production overhaul is now on the way for the two soaps, which will improve the visual quality that fans see on screen. This is partly inspired by the success of Corriedale, which used high-end cameras and different filming techniques.

“In terms of the look and feel of the shows, we’re in the midst of a big piece of work around evolving what they both look like,” MacLeod told the This Is Media City podcast.

“I want there to be a somewhat consistent visual feel between the soaps, so you know when you turn on Emmerdale or turn on Corrie, that it’s an ITV soap – without homogenising it too much.

“But we’re updating all of our kit, basically, in terms of cameras and post-production infrastructure and all the rest of it. There might [also] be some news around shifting from HD slightly upwards, in terms of the resolution that we’re using.”

Explaining the reasoning behind the changes, he continued: “What we don’t want is to be left behind. If your mum’s now watching Squid Game on Netflix, you don’t want those viewers to turn on Corrie or turn on Emmerdale and it looks like a completely different century – or genre, even.

“We want to evolve our look so it retains some of the cinematic flavours that we saw in Corriedale recently.”

Soap bosses are also exploring the possibility of shorter digital-based spin-offs, which could see characters shift in and out of the main shows.

“We’re talking about things like micro-dramas, vertical dramas,” MacLeod said. “Is there any other parallel IP we can generate with a different set of characters, that feeds into and out of the main show? That will, we hope, engage a slightly younger audience and maybe drive those younger viewers into [the main soaps]?

“We’re exploring all kinds of options with that. The other one is, can we boil our 23-minute episodes down into a micro-drama? That’s proving more difficult, because a lot goes on in a soap!”