Coronation Street in 2001 2001 was " Coronation Street " ' s forty - second year . Production . Issues . In its second year under executive producer Jane Macnaught , " Coronation Street " continued to revolve around blockbuster storylines . As Sarah Platt ' s teenage pregnancy storyline had been popular , writers created more issue - led plots , including the assault and rape of Toyah Battersby , Alma Halliwell ' s death by cervical cancer , the abuse of Wayne Hayes by his stepfather Alex Swinton and Sarah Platt being groomed by a pervert on an internet chatroom . Compared with the earlier storyline , reactions to these plots were mixed and none were notably successful in the ratings . Toyah ' s rape by an unseen assailant was played as a whodunit , with Toyah ' s friend Phil Simmonds later being unveiled as the culprit . Though the performance of Georgia Taylor was praised , the decision to frame the storyline around a " whodunit " - style mystery was lambasted , with the " " and the " " accusing the programme of trivialising the impact of the rape itself . Due to the storyline airing immediately after " " ' s popular " Who shot ? " plot , the storyline was interpreted by critics as an attempt by " Coronation Street " to hit back with a mystery of its own . Alma was killed off in June after Amanda Barrie quit the programme , 20 years after her first appearance . The cervical cancer storyline proceeded at a rapid pace , with Alma discovering that she had the terminal illness and passing away six weeks later , the late diagnosis occurring to the hospital mixing up her smear test results . Despite the on - screen explanation , Barrie disliked the storyline , referring to it as a " cheap ratings ploy " for giving the impression that cancer sufferers had just weeks to live after being diagnosed , although she conceded that the storyline had had the positive effect of encouraging more women to have smear tests . Cast changes . In March , three months after its 40th anniversary , " Coronation Street " broadcast its 5000th episode . The hour - long instalment centred on a custody hearing at which Mike Baldwin beat Ken Barlow in obtaining guardianship of Adam Barlow , Mike ' s son and Ken ' s grandson . Susan Barlow made her first appearance since 1987 in January ( recast with Joanna Foster ) for the storyline which saw Mike discover that he had a 12 - year - old son and that Susan had lied about having an abortion when they split . So that the fight would be between Ken and Mike , writers killed off Susan in a car crash . Iain De Caestecker played Adam on a recurring basis between 2001 and 2003 . The empty No . 11 was rented out by Steve McDonald to Eileen Grimshaw and her teenage sons Jason and Todd , with Bruno Langley joining the cast as bookish mummy ' s boy Todd . Daran Little planned Todd as " Coronation Street " ' s first gay character , based partially on himself , although his coming out story was held back until 2004 . Little - previously the programme ' s archivist - joined the writing team at the beginning of the year . His successor as archivist was Helen Nugent . Other newcomers included Brian Capron as financial adviser Richard Hillman , nefarious love interest for Gail Platt , Sally Lindsay as new Rovers barmaid Shelley Unwin , Jennie McAlpine as Fiz Brown , a redheaded foster child who caused havoc for Roy and Hayley Cropper before setting her cap at Tyrone Dobbs , and Shobna Gulati as Sunita Parekh , demure friend of Dev Alahan ' s trying to escape an arranged marriage . The Rovers changed hands for the fourth time in as many years as Mike and Fred Elliott sold their shares to Hamilton Griffiths Holdings , only to discover that their partner Duggie Ferguson owned it . Duggie himself auctioned off the Rovers at the end of the year , and it was bought by Fred for his wife Eve to run as landlady . Melanie Kilburn returned as Eve , who married Fred in September . Aside from Amanda Barrie , Jacqueline Chadwick was the main departee . Chadwick had been due to go on maternity leave , but complications in her pregnancy forced her to leave a few days early . As her exit scenes were yet to be filmed , Chadwick was asked to work on , but the actress refused and so Linda Baldwin ' s planned last appearance was rewritten so that she was only seen from afar and could be played by an extra . Chadwick did not return after her maternity leave . Richard Standing made his final appearance as Danny Hargreaves , who walked out on Sally Webster after she confessed , on their wedding day , that she had slept with Kevin a year earlier . John Quayle left the role of Anthony Stephens after one year , with Anthony going to New Zealand on his own after Rita Sullivan turned down his proposal of marriage . Doom - monger Edna Miller died in Duggie Ferguson ' s bed but , in one of the more unusual instances of an actor playing different characters , actress Joan Kempson re - appeared in the programme as Edna ' s equally gloomy sister Iris Merry at Edna ' s funeral . Julie Hesmondhalgh was absent between September and December as the actress went on maternity leave . Extra episode . Following a 12 % slump in ad revenues , ITV became more dependent on its proven successes . It had already increased " " ' s weekly output from three to five episodes the previous year , and mounted a revival of " " in May , which also ran at five episodes per week . In the Spring , the network ordered additional " Coronation Street " to bring it into line with the other soaps on the channel . Unlike the introduction of the Friday and Sunday episodes in 1989 and 1996 , the existing shooting schedule remained in place , with the only change being an increase in workload . To enable a smooth transition to producing five episodes a week , output was increased gradually over the course of two years , at the end of which the new episode was fixed at 8 . 30pm ( the half - hour gap designed to avoid a clash with that evening ' s episode of " EastEnders " ) . Prior to that , many weeks still contained only four episodes , and many had extended episodes ( notably , the aftermath of Toyah ' s rape was shown in a 70 - minute slot , making it the longest episode of the programme to this date ) . The second half of 2001 featured a run of episodes , broadcast on Thursdays , which were advertised as specials . Many of these featured smaller casts and focused on a single storyline , or were shot totally on location to avoid taking studio time from other episodes . These included a Derbyshire camping holiday with the Platts , Websters and Croppers , Fred and Eve ' s wedding at which Linda Baldwin went missing , and Mike confronting Alma about her illness in the Lake District . Removal of Jane Macnaught . In October , after being in charge of " Coronation Street " for two years , Jane Macnaught was appointed New Dramas producer at Granada , to work under Carolyn Reynolds , leaving " Coronation Street " without a producer . Reynolds became its executive producer again and took on the day - to - day running of the programme until its new producer , former " Emmerdale " boss Kieran Roberts , took up the post in December . Despite leaving her position immediately , Macnaught remained credited as executive producer until March 2002 . Viewing figures . At the end of the year , BARB stopped its practice of recording only aggregated figures for programmes which were repeated in the same week as their initial showing , and so this is the last year where ratings which exclude omnibus repeats are not available . For the second year in a row , " Coronation Street " lost over a million viewers compared with the one before . The average was 13 . 25 million viewers , a 9 % fall from 2000 ' s figure . As in that year , every month was down on year - on - year , with the magnitude of the drops fluctuating from month to month from as low as 300 , 000 viewers in April to 2 . 5 million viewers in February . After maintaining a huge presence atop the viewing charts since 1989 , " Coronation Street " saw just three episodes reach number one , the lowest since the late 1980s ( when " EastEnders " had an advantage over " Coronation Street " due to launching with an omnibus ; prior to that , the latest year to have less than ten episodes at number one was 1978 ) . Episode 5090 on 10th August was shown opposite " EastEnders " , the first time that regular 30 - minute length episodes of the programmes had clashed . The head - to - head occurred when the BBC chose to launch their soap ' s fourth weekly episode on that date at 8 . 00pm , where " Coronation Street " had been previously scheduled due to an hour - long " Emmerdale " being shown at 7 . 00pm . Under normal circumstances , due to the large number of people who watched both programmes ITV and the BBC never scheduled them against each other . " EastEnders " gained 13 . 98 million viewers against " Coronation Street " ' s 8 . 55 million viewers . Storylines . To be added . Who lives where . Coronation Street Victoria Street Others Awards and nominations . BAFTA British Soap Awards and Jack & Vera Duckworth ( Nominee ) " Note : winners to be added " National Television Awards " Note : winners to be added "