Emmerdale Farm in 1979

1979 was Emmerdale Farm's 8th year. Storylines included the rape of Wendy Hotson, Joe Sugden's accidental shooting of Phil Fletcher during an argument, the arrival of new estate manager Maurice Westrop, along with his daughter Judy, a depressive alcoholic. 53 episodes were broadcast this year.
==Production==
The strike at Yorkshire Television came to an end on 3rd January 1979 at 5.45pm. With new episodes of the programme due to air from 16th January, ITV quickly hurried the remaining three episodes leftover from 1978 into the schedule, beginning with Episode 490 that very evening. The remaining two episodes were broadcast the following week.
Early on in the year, it was announced that Anne W. Gibbons would be taking over from Michael Glynn as producer. Anne would be the programme's first female producer. She took over the position in June, but due to the 1979 ITV Strike, her work wasn't seen on screen until January 1980. The last episode to be shown before the strike was Episode 542 which was also the last episode aired before the programme's summer break.
The popularity of the show continued to increase as more and more episodes broke into the AGB ratings charts. This year, 33 episodes out of the 53 broadcast made the top twenty chart.
==Episodes==
==Main Cast==
Ranking	Character 	Played by 	Duration 	Number of Episodes	Running total	Previous year's ranking
1 	Annie Sugden 	Sheila Mercier 	Full year 	53 	524 	1
1 	Amos Brearly 	Ronald Magill 	Full year 	53 	511 	1
1 	Henry Wilks 	Arthur Pentelow 	Full year 	53 	512 	1
4 	Joe Sugden 	Frazer Hines 	Full year 	52 	527 	7
5 	Matt Skilbeck 	Frederick Pyne 	Full year 	47 	513 	1
6 	Sam Pearson 	Toke Townley 	Full year 	41 	483 	6
7 	Dolly Skilbeck 	Katharine Barker	Until February, April to July	39 	169 	1
8 	Maurice Westrop	Edward Dentith 	From January 	38 	38 	-
9 	Donald Hinton 	Hugh Manning 	Until February, from April 	35 	120 	8
10 	Seth Armstrong 	Stan Richards 	May only 	8 	25 	9
11 	Judy Westrop 	Jane Cussons 	From June 	4 	4 	-
==Storylines==
to be added
==Who lives where==
to be added
==Awards and Nominations==
to be added
Category:1979
Category:Emmerdale year-by-year