Who needs Netflix when you've got Corrie? Meet the soaperfans!

Pete Price has watched every episode of Coronation Street, having caught the very first one back in 1960. “It was a dull, black and white street and, to this day, I don’t know why I got hooked,” says the 74-year-old Liverpudlian with a laugh. “But my whole family kept tuning in. Next thing you know, it’s a phenomenon. Now it feels like the characters live with me. I can’t imagine life without it.”

Despite the massive growth of streaming services – Netflix plans to spend more than $17bn (£13bn) on new content this year – a sizable British audience still tunes in to watch soaps on network TV. Celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, and its 10,000th episode earlier this month, Coronation Street regularly tops the ratings with more than 6 million viewers per show. And EastEnders hits 35 on Wednesday, with rumours of a dead body for its 4.5 million viewers. What keeps these fans hooked?

“You become so familiar with the characters,” says Price. “They are a comforting part of your life. When Jean Alexander, who played Hilda Ogden, died in 2016, I took it really badly. My friends were taking the mickey, but it was like losing a member of the family.”

For Glenda Young, another lifelong Corrie fan, the show works as nostalgia, a reminder of her childhood. “I’m 55 now, but I can remember when I was a child, being curled up on the sofa between my mum and my grandma watching Corrie,” she says. “It’s been one of the few constants in my life. It’s a real comfort, a reminder of being back home if I’ve been away.”

Corrie also helped to kick off her career as a writer. “When I got my first computer in 1993, the first two words I typed into the internet were ‘Coronation Street’ because I wanted to see what was out there.” She came upon a small fan forum and began to write weekly episode recaps from her home in Sunderland at the behest of viewers overseas, where episodes lagged weeks behind. She now writes recaps to a mailing list of more than 5,000 people and organises regular visits to the set in Manchester. It was on one such trip that she met the man who would become her husband.

“After we had been together for 10 years,” she says, “we went on another set visit and he suddenly got down on one knee, on the famous cobbles, to propose to me. It was bizarre how things came full circle.” Even their wedding incorporated nods to the show. “Halfway through me walking down the aisle, the music changed to the Coronation Street theme tune and everyone burst out laughing. We had to have a reference to the show – because it’s absolutely changed my life. When I sit down to watch it now, it feels like more than just a programme.”

It isn’t just members of older generations who are hooked on soaps. For 19-year-old Abbey Wilson and 22-year-old Kat Moran, social media keeps them glued to their favourites. “I watch EastEnders, Emmerdale and Hollyoaks but Corrie is the one I have to watch live,” Moran says. “I have to be alone and in silence so I can tweet reactions to my followers. Then I rewatch each episode so I can properly follow the story.”

Hard-hitting storylines – such as the 50th anniversary tram explosion and the rape of Carla Connor – are what have kept Moran watching. “I was only 13 when that rape storyline happened,” she says. “It really educated me about the abuse that can happen to women. It changed my understanding of the world.” Moran, who lives in Southampton, finds Corrie’s consistency a vital counter to her everyday world. “Working life can be really stressful for young people and I suffer from anxiety,” she says. “So the fact that Corrie is a constant gets me through my day. It’s been a safe place for me, somewhere you know the loose ends will be tied up and questions answered, which isn’t how real life works.”

Abbey Wilson believes the appeal of soaps lies in their depiction of life. “People are often surprised when I tell them I’m a soap fan,” she says. “They normally think they’re for older people – but they are the only programmes that get close to representing our towns and jobs and people. The majority of my friends come from online Corrie fan groups and they’re all young, too.”

Wilson, who lives in Derbyshire, is so committed to Corrie, she once decided to put her own partying aside for a big plotline. “I had drinks planned to celebrate my 18th but a few days before, ITV announced that a character was going to get shot on Corrie that night. So I had to cancel my plans – it was too big to miss.”

Nick and Claire Arkell tuned in to Hollyoaks when it began in 1995 because it was set in Chester. “We couldn’t believe it was taking place in our town,” says Nick. “We hadn’t seen anything like it before – our own accents on TV! We were hooked instantly.”

So hooked that they got married on the show’s set in 2017, or at least that’s how the TV cameras made it look. “I contacted the production team to see if they would send a video saying good luck to Claire before our wedding,” Nick says. “But they got back to me asking us to come in and film a wedding with the cast.”

With only days to go before their real wedding, the couple drove to the set and Nick surprised Claire by telling her they had parts in the show. “The first I knew,” says Claire, “was when we turned up and a camera crew came towards me with my maid of honour, the character Tegan, and I was told I was getting married in Hollyoaks. I was so shocked I could hardly speak. The whole day was like a dream.”

For Nick, who only sporadically watches the show now, its appeal comes through Claire’s enjoyment. “She’s the superfan,” he says. “It just makes me happy seeing what joy it brings to her life every day – so much so that when we got properly married, she walked down the aisle to the Hollyoaks theme.”

“And when we got back from our honeymoon,” Claire adds, “I binged three weeks of episodes in one day to catch up.”

Not everyone turns to soaps for a dose of reality, though. Neighbours fan Jack Thompson first tuned in to the Australian soap for some escapism. “I’m 38 and I remember when it was just starting in Britain. It was huge. I was a shy kid living in Newcastle in the 80s, which felt very bleak in the midst of Thatcher and the mining collapse, and then this show comes along full of tanned Aussies frolicking in the sun. It was just so enticing.”

Like Moran, Thompson enjoyed the consistency of the show, the continuing storylines of long-serving characters. “It’s been the one constant in my life. I had a lot of ups and downs in my late teens, moved around the country many times, so it has always been comforting to know that characters like Karl and Susan are still there. It makes me emotional talking about it.” As he talks from his home in Newcastle, his voice is cracking.

This reliability, this sense that they’re here for ever, seems to be what makes these shows so appealing – particularly in the fast-paced, binge-watching streaming age, when favourite shows can often be cancelled without ever reaching a resolution, which happened recently with The OA on Netflix. Soaps just keep moving forward.

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“Don’t get me wrong,” says Price. “I fell out of love with Corrie a couple of times. It’s like a relationship. I’d think, ‘Why am I bothering?’ when there were ridiculous storylines. But like any relationship, you fight through and you stick with it. Now, they’re on a roll with some phenomenal storylines and I can’t see any of the soaps slowing down. They’re not just an integral part of my life but a part of British life in general.”