Emmerdale Farm in 1978

1978 was Emmerdale Farm's 7th year. Storylines included a mine explosion, the marriage of Matt Skilbeck and Dolly Acaster, the death of George Verney and the purchase of his land by NY Estates and an armed robbery at The Woolpack. Michael Glynn continued as producer for the second year running. 75 episodes were broadcast.
==Production==
ITV's decision to move the programme up the schedule proved to pay off as episodes began breaking into the network top twenty of the AGB ratings with 17 episodes out of the 75 broadcast appearing.
Stan Richards' arrival was the only notable change to the cast this year as Seth Armstrong appeared for the first time in Episode 449. Initially beginning as a secondary character, it would be another two years before Richards would begin to appear as a regular, for now only appearing when storylines demanded.
Gail Harrison returned as Marian Wilks for seven episodes from October. This would be the last time Harrison appeared in the series. When the character of Marian appeared again, nine years later, she would instead be portrayed by Debbi Blythe.
After two years of working as script editor, Chris Barlas departed the company to focus on writing. He was succeeded by Michael Russell who had previously worked in advertising and public relations. Russell had also previously worked on a farm and the Milk Marketing Board so, despite this being his first television post, was able to bring some experience to the programme.
The programme took another summer break this year, remaining off air for July and August. Thames Television, who had been broadcasting Crossroads across Monday to Thursday in a 6.35pm slot, took the opportunity to revise its scheduling for Emmerdale Farm for its September return. They moved their Wednesday episode at 5.15pm to Tuesday at 5.15pm while their Friday episode was moved up the schedule to 6.30pm.
A seventeen day long strike at Yorkshire Television, caused by a dispute on a productivity agreement, prevented the last three episodes of Emmerdale Farm, covering Christmas in Beckindale, going out as intended. These were shown when the strike ended at the start of January 1979.
==Episodes==
==Main Cast==
Ranking	Character 	Played by 	Duration 	Number of Episodes	Running total	Previous year's ranking
1 	Annie Sugden 	Sheila Mercier 	Full year 	75 	471 	1
1 	Matt Skilbeck 	Frederick Pyne 	Full year 	75 	466 	1
1 	Amos Brearly 	Ronald Magill 	Full year 	75 	458 	1
1 	Henry Wilks 	Arthur Pentelow 	Full year 	75 	459 	1
1 	Dolly Acaster/Skilbeck	Katharine Barker	Full year 	75 	130 	7
6 	Sam Pearson 	Toke Townley 	Full year 	74 	442 	6
7 	Joe Sugden 	Frazer Hines 	Full year 	73 	475 	1
8 	Donald Hinton 	Hugh Manning 	Full year 	69 	85 	9
9 	Seth Armstrong 	Stan Richards 	May to June, October to November	17 	17 	-
10 	Marian Wilks 	Gail Harrison 	October to November 	7 	40 	-
==Storylines==
to be added
==Who lives where==
to be added
==Awards and Nominations==
to be added
Category:1978
Category:Emmerdale year-by-year