Corrie's decline 1997-present.

[CAEF]

While the early years ended in 1983-1984, I feel "classic Corrie" as a whole ended in 1997/1998 and the slow decline begun accelerating in 2000-2001.

I think the style and format of classic Corrie started to fade when the Battersby's arrived in 1997. In other words, Brian Park's era was the start of the decline. 1996 was the last year of "old school Corrie".

[Deleted]

I agree wholeheartedly CAEF. The arrival of the Battersby's ruined Corrie for me. The rot had really set in with Brian Park as producer.
And also in the late 90's they had that awful cult storyline with Zoe Tattersall. I rolled my eyes when Brian Park bragged that the the cult name Nirab was an anagram of Brian. No doubt Joanne Froggatt was so embarrassed she left out her time in Corrie on her CV.
The only thing in Park's favour was that he introduced Fred Elliot - one of my fave all time Corrie characters. I still laugh at the scene where Fred was campaigning with Alf Roberts for mayor, He saw a baby in his pram abd bellowed "ello little babeh" and the baby started crying. LOL

[Holey]

I agree, CS lost something special which it never got back sadly. It used to be a treat something to look forward to watching CS. I think the countless episodes have certainly not helped. It is like a sausage factory now churning them out and you can tell.

[Deleted]

Good point about the episode increases Holez. Yeah the storylines are so watered down now that they are barely recognisable from the Corrie heyday of the 60's to the 80's
Bill Podmore remains my all time fave Corrie producer. When he left, so did Corrie's spark.

[CAEF]

I feel the first half of 1990s Corrie was good. But the decline begun when the Battersby's arrived.

Podders left in late 1988 and his last episode was aired on the 1st February 1989.

[Holey]

I agree Wendy Podmore was great and his first stint as Producer was CS at it's very best. I sometimes wonder what Daran Little would be like as Producer, he certainly knows the history of the show, but he is settled at Elstree and I would not want him to leave as he is EE best script writer, plus I would like Daran to get the top job on EE.

I hear Daran has now moved to LA, so whether he will still write for British Soaps I am not sure?

[CAEF]

I think the decline took place long after Podders left. Common opinion is it was around the time that family arrived in 1997.

[Deleted]

CAEF had it spot on with the Battersby's arrival in 1997 was the slow decline of Corrie.
If Janice Battersby ever came back to Corrie then that's me done with Corrie for good....even if it's during Corrie's 60th anniversary. I absolutely loathe that loud mouth witch. And she's just like it in real life too apparently.
The less said about Bruce Jones the better.

[CAEF]

Lots of actors are as vile as their characters. Bruce Jones, Jessie Wallace, Vicky Entwhistle, Fred Feast, Peter Adamson, Michael Parr, Jimmi Harkishin etc.

In fairness Sean Tully is much nicer than the actor.

[Deleted]

Coronation Street has seriously been hitting rock bottom since at least 2013. I mean it may not have been like classic Corrie post-1997, but at least it was watchable and still retained a sense of community. The plots are really repetitive now as well, which hasn't been helped by the increase of six episodes of the show's insistence of constantly bringing over producers from Emmerdale to regurgitate the same plots.

Hasn't helped that in the past decade a lot of the classic characters have departed, a lot of it sometimes down to the actors passing away. Such as Jack and Vera Duckworth, Fred Elliot, Mike Baldwin, Blanche Hunt, Deirdre Barlow, Norris Cole (in a way due to the actor's health problems), Emily Bishop, Betty Williams, etc. The characters now aren't a patch on them, and even the ones with potential get ruined with bad writing.

[butterball]

Just watching a couple of eps from Classic Corrie on ITV3 and it reminded me of how good it once was. Diedre, Ivy and Don Brennan. Mike Baldwin and the great Bet and Alec Gilroy whose grand daughter Vickie has just arrived. Liz pre her face lift. Pity it got so dire that I stopped watching about 5 years ago.

[CAEF]

On YouTube there are old episodes and clips of Stan and Hilda and people say that it is infinitely better than modern day Corrie. I 100% back their opinions. In the Stan and Hilda days, there was not a murder every week, a rape, a suicide, violent criminals, kid fiddlers or trannies all living in one small street. It was real life drama back then.

1960-1997 Corrie was classic.

[roverman]

I’ve been trying to understand why TPTB felt that Corrie needed “shaking up” in 1997 and why they hired Brian Park, who set the course for the drama laden sensationalist show we have today.

[CAEF]

He did these things:

Bought in an uncouth family.
Made Jim a raspberry ripple for a few months.
Axed Percy, Bill, Derek, Andy and probably others.
Introduced a cult storyline.
And after bringing in a transgender character, had her the butt of transphobia from Mike Baldwin and Les Battersby.
Had Don Brennan turn into a psycho.

[roverman]

I’m struggling to see why the urgency though, yes Corrie needed a new family and a few younger characters, the issue being there was a big shortage of characters under the age of 25, and the general ageing of established characters which some viewers would find less entertaining than before because they are reaching their limitations and having to take more time off.

Viewing figures aren’t that bad compared to pre 1995 and they did lose Julie Goodyear who was a popular character who had been on screen for 25 years. I think the mistake they made was doing episodes on Sunday, the viewing figures never reached the same heights as the weekday shows.

I agree that Don’s character was destroyed and it seemed such a shame as Don had been a saint to put up with Ivy, who even in death had made Don’s life a misery. It’s not surprising he went stark raving mad.

It is funny to think the legacy of Park lives on now as the Battersby girls have come and gone and come back again and have settled down as established 3-dimensional characters, although I think we all struggled to believe young, attractive, vegetarian eco woman Toyah would be interested in Peter the alcoholic dinosaur (who is the same age as her mother btw!)

It was brave to introduce a trans character and yes Hayley had to suffer transphobia but that was an accurate reflection of how some people did react to that kind of news. I think that is certainly one thing that worked out well in the end, but overall I am not convinced there was any need to have radically changed the Street to the lengths he went to.