Emmerdale Farm (UK TV series)

***Emmerdale*** (known as Emmerdale Farm until 1989) is a long-running British soap opera set in Emmerdale (known as Beckindale until 1994), a fictional village in the Yorkshire Dales. Created by Kevin Laffan, Emmerdale Farm was first broadcast on October 16, 1972. Produced by ITV Yorkshire, it has been filmed at their Leeds studio since its inception. The programme has been broadcast in every ITV region.

The premise of Emmerdale Farm was similar to the BBC radio soap opera The Archers, focusing on a family, a farm and characters in a nearby village.

The series originally appeared during the afternoon until 1978, when it was moved to an early-evening time slot in most regions; London and Anglia followed during the mid-1980s. Until December 1988, Emmerdale took seasonal breaks; since then, it has been broadcast year-round.

Episodes air on ITV weekday evenings at 19:00, with a second Thursday episode at 20:00. The programme began broadcasting in high definition on October 10, 2011. Emmerdale is the United Kingdom's second-longest-running television soap opera (after ITV's Coronation Street), and attracts an average of five to seven million viewers per episode.

October 2012 marked the 40th anniversary of the show. During that month, the show made a live episode to mark the anniversary.

#### Characters

Emmerdale has had a large number of characters since it began, with its cast gradually expanding in size. The programme has also had changing residences and businesses for its characters, including a bed-and-breakfast and a factory.

The Miffield estate was the largest employer in the village of Beckindale, 39 miles (63 km) from Bradford and 52 miles (84 km) from Leeds. Lord Miffield leased Emmerdale Farm, on the edge of the village, to the Sugden family during the 1850s in gratitude after Josh Sugden sacrificed his life for the earl's son in the Crimean War. Josh's grandson Joseph married Margaret Oldroyd and their son, Jacob, was born in January 1916. During the 1930s, Jacob Sugden purchased Emmerdale Farm. In 1945 he married Annie Pearson, daughter of farm labourer Sam Pearson. Margaret Sugden died in 1963, and Joseph died the following year.

Jacob Sugden ran the farm into the ground, drinking away its profits. The badly-maintained farm's future looked bleak at his death on October 10, 1972. He was survived by his wife Annie, two sons and a daughter: Jack, the eldest; Peggy and Joe, the youngest of the three. These characters formed the basis of Emmerdale Farm.

Character types on Emmerdale have included "bad boys", such as Cain Dingle, Ross Barton, Carl King, Robert Sugden and Aaron Livesy; "bitches", such as Kim Tate, Charity Tate, Nicola King, Chrissie White, Kelly Windsor and Sadie King; "villains", such as Cameron Murray, Lachlan White, Steph Stokes, Rosemary King, Gordon Livesy and Sally Spode; caring characters, such as Laurel Potts, Emily Kirk, Lisa Dingle, Paddy Kirk and Ruby Haswell; sassy women, such as Chas Dingle, Val Pollard, Viv Hope, Rebecca White, Nicola King, Leyla Harding and Belle Dingle, and comedy characters such as Kerry Wyatt, Bernice Blackstock, David Metcalfe, Val Pollard, Seth Armstrong, Dan Spencer and Jimmy King. The show has had a number of matriarchs, including Diane Sugden, Viv Hope, Lisa Dingle, Annie Sugden and Moira Barton. Older characters in Emmerdale include Edna Birch, Betty Eagleton, Pearl Ladderbanks, Sandy Thomas, Seth Armstrong, Alan Turner, Sam Pearson, Lily Butterfield and Len Reynolds.

#### First Episode

The first episode of Emmerdale Farm, aired on 1October 16, 1972, began with Jacob Sugden's funeral. Jacob upset the family when he left the farm to his eldest son, Jack, who left home at 18 in 1964 and had not returned. Jack appeared in the opening episode, avoiding the funeral and waiting for the Sugdens at Emmerdale Farm. Over the next few months Jack sold a share of the farm to Annie, Joe, Peggy and his grandfather, Sam Pearson. Emmerdale Farm Ltd was formed when Henry Wilks bought Sam's share of the estate. The first episode, along with the others, have been repeated and released on a variety of media.

Characters introduced in the first episode were:

* Annie Sugden (Sheila Mercier)
* Jack Sugden (Andrew Burt)
* Peggy Skilbeck (Jo Kendall)
* Matt Skilbeck (Frederick Pyne)
* Joe Sugden (Frazer Hines)
* Sam Pearson (Toke Townley)
* Amos Brearly (Ronald Magill)
* Henry Wilks (Arthur Pentelow)
* Marian Wilks (Gail Harrison)
* Alec Saunders (Alan Tucker)

#### Change of Name

The show's focus, initially on the farm and the Sugden family, moved to the nearby village of Beckindale. Reflecting this change, on 14 November 1989 its title was changed to Emmerdale. Coinciding with the title change was the introduction of the Tate family. These changes and more exciting storylines and dramatic episodes, such as Pat Sugden's 1986 car crash and the 1988 Crossgill fire, gradually began to improve the soap's popularity under new executive producer Keith Richardson. Richardson produced the programme for 24 years, overseeing its transformation from a minor, daytime, rural drama into a major UK soap opera. The Windsor family arrived in 1993.

Emmerdale had dramatic storylines for the rest of the 1990s and new long-term characters, such as the Dingle family, were introduced. The Tates became the soap's leading family during the decade, overshadowing the Sugdens and remaining at Home Farm for 16 years. Family members left or died and the last, Zoe, left in 2005.

#### Plane Crash

By 1993 Emmerdale was beginning its third decade on the air. In December of that year, one particular episode emerged as a major turning point for the show's history. Meant to evoke memories of the Lockerbie Disaster whose fifth anniversary was just nine days prior, the Emmerdale episode written for December 30, attracted its highest-ever audience (over 18 million) by featuring a plane crashing into the village, killing four people. According to Nick Smurthwaite, the episode brought forth not just ratings but "complaints from aghast viewers." Nevertheless, the episode proved to be "brilliant television", as the highly-rated episode "allowed the writers to get rid of much dead wood, and reinvent the soap virtually from scratch", which included survivors changing the village name from Beckindale to Emmerdale.

#### Families

* The Sugden family (1972–present)
* The Bates family (1984–2001)
* The Tate family (1989–2005, 2009–present)
* The Windsor/Hope families (1993–present)
* The Dingle family (1994–present)
* The Glover family (1994–2000)
* The Thomas family (1996–present)
* The Blackstock/Lambert family (1998–present)