News of Sean Wilson’s abrupt departure from Coronation Street, which came only weeks after his widely reported comeback as part of Gail Platt’s departure, has cast doubt on the show’s future.
The ITV soap opera has been a mainstay on television sets for 60 years, but in recent years it has seen a number of setbacks, such as declining ratings, budget cuts, and a turnover of executives.
The Sun first reported on Friday that Sean had left Corrie, with sources revealing that he had actually left two weeks earlier, leaving cast and crew shocked and bosses barred from discussing the matter.
Both ITV and Sean’s agent have stated he left the soap due to ‘personal reasons,’ but the exit has cast eyes on the show as it faces yet another crisis.
So, as fans wonder whether Corrie can recover from its latest crisis, MailOnline takes a look at the various set-backs that have hit the scandal-plagued show…
Last month, Corrie bosses announced that fan-favourite character Martin Platt would be heading back to the cobbles this autumn for a huge new storyline, paving the way for Gail’s exit at the end of the year.
Actress Helen Worth had announced she would be leaving the soap this Christmas, leading fans to hope they would see Gail and Martin ride off into the sunset together.
However, these plans have now been sensationally scrapped, as it was revealed over the weekend that Sean had abruptly left the soap.
As reported by The Sun, Sean was called in for a meeting with bosses and left with ‘no explanation offered’ to his co-stars.
An ITV spokesperson: ‘Sean Wilson has stepped down from filming for personal reasons.’
Sean’s agent told the publication: ‘Neither he nor I will be making any further comment or statement.’
Sean was reportedly axed from the show two weeks before the news broke with lawyers becoming involved, as the mystery on the cobbles deepens.
But reports suggest he suddenly departed the show after being ‘summoned to head office’ before quitting for ‘personal reasons’ forcing Gail’s entire exit storyline to be frantically rewritten.
It’s now been reported that former star John Thomson will instead be reprising his role as children’s entertainer Jesse Chadwic in a ‘frantic rewrite.’
A source told ‘It’s been an absolutely frantic, incredibly stressful past couple of weeks for Corrie bosses and scriptwriters.
‘So many new departure storylines for Gail were mooted but they were set on a love interest one – which proved tricky as she buried five of her six ex-husbands. And the remaining living one, Martin, was obviously axed in real life.
‘They wanted a recognisable name and plumped for John as his character was popular with viewers and a real blast from the past.’
Since their inception, Corrie has been a regular winner at The National Television Awards and British Soap Awards, however last year, eyebrows were raised when it failed to scoop a single gong at the NTAs.
Instead, BBC rival EastEnders swept the board, lifting the gongs for best serial drama, serial drama performance and rising star.
The show also failed to land a single nomination at the British Academy Television Awards back in May, while EastEnders and Emmerdale made the final cut, while BBC One’s Casualty took home the Best Soap and Continuing Drama honours.
It’s a far cry from Corrie’s prior wins, at the BAFTA TV Awards in 2022, and the NTAs, three years ago in 2021.
While Corrie is up for two gongs at the National Television Awards next month, it remains to be seen whether they will come out on top.
Budget Cuts
While Helen made the decision herself to leave Corrie, her exit will save the soap £250,000 a year, with bosses currently pushing drastic cost-cutting measures
ITV soap stars earn a fee per episode. But that means salaries can vary wildly, with veteran stars like Helen taking home £2,000 per episode, while younger cast members are thought to be on £400
The highest paid actors on Corrie are thought to include Jack P Shepherd who plays the role of Gail’s son, David Platt
Younger cast members are thought to be on £400 per episode with contracts of a minimum of 30 episodes per year (pictured Charlotte Jordan, who plays Daisy Midgeley)
While Helen made the decision herself to leave Corrie, her exit will save the soap £250,000 a year, with bosses currently pushing drastic cost-cutting measures.
Helen is thought to earn £2.5k an episode, and reportedly signed a new contact earlier this year with a guaranteed £250,000 salary.
The pay structure is the same across ITV soaps Emmerdale and Coronation Street, with actors earning a fee per episode.
But that means salaries can vary wildly, with veteran stars like Helen at the top of the sliding scale of fees, taking home around £2,000 per episode, while younger cast members are thought to be on £400.
The cast reportedly get a guaranteed number of episodes a year, which again ranges with a minimum of 30 for supporting cast members while the likes of Helen will have around 100, plus repeat fees.
Salaries can therefore range from £12,000 to well over £200,000 depending on popularity.
Michelle Keegan famously earned £60,000 a year as Corrie’s Tina McIntyre before she quit the cobbles in 2014 for other roles.
The highest paid actors on Corrie are thought to be Jack P Shepherd who plays the role of Gail’s son David Platt and cobbles legend William Roache who plays Ken Barlow, who like Helen are on £250,000 a year contracts.
Recent reports have claimed that show bosses are cutting down on the amount of cast members featured per episode, therefore saving money on the individual episode fees.
The ITV soap has been forced to adopt a ‘minimal’ approach to ensemble scenes – such as those in the Rovers Return Inn – due to cost-cutting measures, which also include limiting the number of extras used and increasing back to back episode filming which means longer hours per day for the stars.
An insider told the Sunday Mirror newspaper in April: ‘The bosses have decided we will take a far more minimal approach to storylines going forward, and are cutting the number of actors who appear in them. As large numbers of the cast are paid by scene, that means paying fewer actors to be on set.
‘The changes haven’t gone down well with the cast. Many of them are panicking about what these cuts mean for their futures.
‘The Corrie cast is absolutely massive – it has well over 50 cast members in total – and some of them haven’t filmed for weeks, so they are starting to get really worried about the axe falling on them before long.’
Reports of cost cutting have been rumbling on for months. Last summer it was claimed that a host of soap stars from Coronation Street, Emmerdale and EastEnders were reportedly facing the axe.
Insiders speaking to The Sun pointed to plummeting ratings, and claimed that those stars on the higher salaries of around £200,000-a-year could be at threat.
‘There is about to be a bloodbath across Corrie, Emmerdale and EastEnders — and it won’t be pretty,’ the source predicted in August 2023.
‘All the big three have been told they need to cut their wage bills by up to 25 per cent. Now there is panic in the green rooms about who could be facing the chop.
‘Some of the veterans are terrified they could be next — especially the older generation who are all earning well over £200,000. Working in soaps has never been more perilous than it is now.’
Plunging ratings
Thanks to a rise in streaming, Corrie has faced a uphill battle with maintaining their viewing figures, leading to reports the show could move to an online-first strategy in the future
Thanks to a rise in streaming, Corrie, and many other soaps, have faced a uphill battle with maintaining their viewing figures.
In August, Ofcom’s Media Nations report revealed that viewers are switching off traditional television at record rates, with even loyal over-65s ditching the format for an ‘all-you-can-eat broadcasting buffet’ on streaming rivals like Netflix and Disney+.
With more competition than ever from streamers, the proportion of Brits watching a programme on broadcast TV each week dropped from 83 per cent in 2021 to 79 per cent in 2022 – the sharpest decline since records began.
Fewer people than ever before are tuning into the main channels, with news bulletins and soap operas failing to attract the audiences they once did.
The Ofcom Media Nations 2023 said the average time spent watching broadcast television per person per day fell from two hours 59 minutes in 2021 to two hours 38 minutes the following year.
The number of shows with over four million TV viewers has more than halved over the past eight years since 2022, which reflects fewer people tuning in to watch early and late evening TV news bulletins as well as a steady decline in viewing figures for the three most popular soaps, Coronation Street, EastEnders and Emmerdale, Ofcom said.
Overall soap audiences are down 42 per cent since 2014. The Christmas Day episode of Corrie was viewed by 2.6million – down almost three quarters from 10 years ago.
‘Today’s viewers and listeners have an ‘all-you-can-eat’ buffet of broadcasting and online content to choose from and there’s more competition for our attention than ever,’ said Yih-Choung Teh, from Ofcom.
‘Our traditional broadcasters are seeing steep declines in viewing to their scheduled, live programmes, including among typically loyal older audiences, and soaps and news don’t have the mass-audience pulling power they once had.
In response to the report insiders spilled that ITV chiefs are discussing a major shake-up of its soaps which could see them screened first, or exclusively, through online streaming.
Anxious bosses have been desperately looking at how they can attract a new audience, as even their older viewers are watching less terrestrial TV in favour of streaming giants.
In December, The Mail On Sunday also revealed that ITV were discussing a major shake-up of its soaps which could see them screened first, or exclusively, through online streaming, in a bid to rival big-hitters such as Netflix.
Its popularity led ITV to launch its online ITVX in 2022, with bosses calling it a ‘huge success’. Now they are considering it as a home for soaps.
An ITV insider said: ‘Soaps don’t make as much advertising money as they used to.
‘There are some chiefs looking enviously at all the consumer-themed documentaries Channel 5 makes and thinking that there could be better commercial opportunities in that kind of programming and using the slots allocated to the soaps for those.
‘Corrie and Emmerdale are losing viewers at a drop of around ten per cent on last year.
‘Budgets have already been cut on both shows and it is hard to see how they can sustain so many episodes.’
In November, in a speech to celebrate the success of ITVX, the channel’s boss Kevin Lygo told of his pride at how popular it had become by putting on dramas such as Nolly – the story of Crossroads star Noele Gordon – before screening it on ITV1 this Christmas.
Last year Channel 5 axed Neighbours and earlier this year Channel 4 put its soap Hollyoaks online.
Lack of leadership
Since the start of 2024, Corrie has faced a reshuffle of its leadership, when Iain MacLeod, who had been executive producer since 2018, was promoted to oversee Corrie and Emmerdale
In March it was announced that Emmerdale’s Kate Brooks had landed the job of Corrie producer, however sources claimed a number of execs turned down the job
Since the start of 2024, Corrie has faced a reshuffle of its leadership, when Iain MacLeod, who had been executive producer since 2018, was promoted to oversee Corrie and Emmerdale.
As a stop gap, MacLeod’s wife and deputy on Corrie, Verity MacLeod, was filling in until they could find someone to take the job, and in March it was announced that Emmerdale’s Kate Brooks had landed the job.
However, it was revealed that a number of television executives turned down the prestigious job – leaving the network with a ‘huge headache.’
ITV’s top drama boss and former editor of The Archers Huw Kennair-Jones was drafted in to sort the problem out and he has approached a number of top television executives working at the BBC, Channel 4 and Sky in a bid to lure them across.
Staff at ITV said that this is putting off potential candidates because they don’t want to be working in between the married couple, something that is now referred to internally as the ‘MacLeod sandwich.’
One insider told MailOnline: ‘ITV have had conversations with a number of television executives who are currently working on other serial dramas or have in the past been at the helm of big shows.
‘But no one wants to do it. One of the things putting people off is the fact that you’d be answering to Iain while having his wife as your deputy.
‘It’s a ”MacLeod sandwich” that no one wants to be in the middle of and it’s now become even more of a headache for ITV.’
A source also told The Sun: ‘The feeling is that Kate won’t have a free hand to do what’s needed to improve the show while Iain is still there.
‘Under Iain, the once fun-filled, jovial northern soap has become grimmer. Fans have hated the over-reliance of gangster plots and misery porn. Gangster Harvey Gaskell gunning down Natasha Blakeman after forcing Leanne Battersby into a life of drug dealing was too far. Now Leanne’s in a cult and the soap isn’t recognisable any more.’
Corrie has also come under fire for abandoning its loyal audience, its obsession with younger characters and a number of ‘unbelievable’ plot lines.
Show insiders say that there have been a number of conversations amongst the top brass at ITV that Corrie series producer Iain MacLeod had been in the job too long after joining the show back in 2018 because it is a role that has always changed hands every two to three years.
One said: ‘Corrie has always been a job for two to three years. It needs that change every few years to bring in new ideas, while staying loyal to its DNA and keeping the viewers happy.
‘It’s one of the biggest and most prestigious jobs in television. There had been some noise for a while with talk of the ‘Corrie problem’ so by creating this new role ITV across both soaps it saw it as the answer to both Corrie as well as Jane Hudson’s departure at Emmerdale.’
‘Repulsive’ storylines
In April, Corrie faced huge backlash from viewers, when it was revealed bosses had penned a grim plot which saw Toyah Battersby’s character have a secret baby after being raped in 2001
In April, Coronation Street faced huge backlash from viewers, when it was revealed bosses had penned a grim plot which saw Toyah Battersby’s character have a secret baby after being raped in 2001.
Corrie detailed how the poor baby was stillborn and buried in The Red Rec after the traumatic sex attack by Phil Simmonds – played by Jack Deam.
After decades of keeping her secret quiet, Toyah confessed her tragedy to Nick Tilsley (Ben Price) after his son Sam Blakeman (Jude Riordan) lost Roy and Evelyn Plummer’s dog, Freddie.
She joined the search party and headed to the park, where she encountered two sleuths digging up a rose bed.
Toyah lost her temper and became hysterical over the lack of respect before later revealing her traumatic experience and the name of her rapist to Nick after he witnessed the altercation.
But the storyline faced huge backlash, with one of the show’s former stars branding it ‘repulsive’.
Former soap star Vicky Entwistle, who played her mother Janice Battersby in the Noughties, blasted the show’s producers and writers for meddling with the old plot.
Blasting the producers for meddling with the 20-year storyline, she took to X, formerly known as Twitter.
Reaching out to Bruce Jones, who played her ex-husband Les, she wrote: ‘We tried to make our moments as real as they could possibly be, didn’t we? I guess we failed.
‘Who knew digging up dead babies would become the highlight of ITV’s teatime slot.’
And fans agreed with the actress, and they called the new tale ‘repulsive’, ‘disgusting’ and ‘traumatic’.
One wrote: ‘ Such a ridiculous and unnecessary storyline …’
‘I really question who the writers of the show are nowadays! Doesn’t sound like they lived a day on a working class street in Manc. They want it to be a crime drama or doctor’s waiting room pamphlet self help guide with too many eps & not lettin people act but regurgitate lines!’
‘This storyline is the worst I’ve ever heard. The writing team must think we’re all stupid changing history like this. Corrie is in such a mess. Nobody at ITV will accept this unfortunately. Its so sad to see my favourite soap falling apart like this.’
‘What is stupid about this as well. Is that Toyah went through ivf with Peter and when she was told she couldn’t have children she didn’t mention anything about it. It’s stupid that they suddenly create these storylines when it happened not that long ago in the classic Corrie’
‘Not liking this story – especially as those of us old enough remember that there was no way Toyah could be pregnant. Gruesome. Sad what’s happening to Corrie , especially seeing the old reruns reminding you of how great it was. xx’
Earlier this year, actress Maureen Lipman, 77, who has played Evelyn Plummer since 2018, also urged the soap to scrap gritty storylines and go back to basics.
She said: ‘We’ve come to a point in Corrie now where people are getting murdered in knicker factories. We’re having domestic abuse. Anything that ticks the box of social problems in the 21st century is going to be in your local soap.’
Speaking on the Beyond The Title podcast, she continued: ‘Whereas back then you had the freedom to put Martha [Longhurst], Minnie [Caldwell] and Ena [Sharples] in the snug and have a conversation about Ben-Hur.
‘It’s never been political but I always like it when the women sit down and go, ”Ooh, Donald Trump, ain’t his hair shocking.’
She added: ‘All those wonderful expressions that your parents come out with, like my mother saying, ‘Ooh, doesn’t a black skirt cover a multitude of sins.’ People talk like that, and we recognise it as true.’
