Belle in Emmerdale Tuesday May 20

The drama is ramping up again in this week’s Emmerdale as villagers are knocked out by the slurry ‘incident’ at Butlers Farm – but at what time is Emmerdale on tonight, Tuesday, May 20?

With football, rugby and other special shows, ITV tends to shift the soap schedule round to accommodate them. But we’ve got you covered with all the up-to-date schedule changes right here.

Victoria is worried sick as Harry remains in hospital in Emmerdale (Credit: ITV)
Victoria is worried sick as Harry remains in hospital in Emmerdale (Credit: ITV)

What time is Emmerdale on tonight?

On Tuesday, May 20, 2025, Emmerdale will air at the usual time of 7.30pm on ITV.

The episode is already available on streaming service ITVX. It is normally released there every weekday at 7am.

Mack and John look worried in Emmerdale
John’s feeling guilty over stitching up Mack (Credit: ITV)

What happens in Emmerdale tonight – John learns Aidan’s awake

As John continues to support Victoria by Harry’s bedside and hide his own guilt, he bumps into Aidan’s mum. She reveals there’s been a change in Aidan’s condition – and he’s awake. What will John do now?

Elsewhere, Belle talks to Tracy about Nate and starts to suspect there’s more to his disappearance than meets the eye. As she vows to get to the bottom of it, are there now just too many fires for John to put out?

With John still covering his tracks, Mack is taking the full force of the blame for the slurry leak. Desperate to make amends, can he find a way to do it?

Meanwhile, Lewis is determined to meet Moira and insists Ross takes him to Butlers. But the weight of everything on bares heavily on Moira – can she cope with facing Emma Barton’s long lost son as well?

Also, Sarah attends her fertility clinic appointment, but will the doctor have good news for her?

Emmerdale powering ahead as schedule set to change again for 2026 ‘power hour’

In October 2024, Emmerdale announced they were going to start streaming the daily episode of the soap from 7am. Despite some concerns that it meant the soap was in trouble, coupled with lots of cast exits, it has been revealed that actually it was a great move by ITV.

Stats for the first quarter of 2025 revealed that ITVX has achieved a ‘record-breaking’ billion streams in a quarter for the ‘first time ever.’ Coronation Street and Emmerdale have raked up 124 million streams on ITVX so far this year. Soap viewing is up 35 percent in comparison to the first quarter of 2024. So it seems fans are really enjoying the 7am uploads.

It’ll soon be all change once again for ITV and Emmerdale in 2026 after the soap announced a new schedule. The soap ‘power hour’ will start from next January.

Emmerdale will continue to air five nights a week. New episodes will also drop on ITVX every morning at 7am as usual – meaning we don’t have to wait all day if we don’t want to!

However, the soap will move to a new time slot of 8pm. The Thursday double bill will also be cut to half an hour to make way for additional episodes of Coronation Street.

This ensures faster-paced, digestible episodes – a 30-minute format which has already proven popular with viewers.

Read more: Who’s leaving Emmerdale? All the cast exits, arrivals and returns

Emmerdale usually airs weeknights on ITV at 7.30pm, with an early release on ITVX at 7am.

Classic Emmerdale usually airs every weekday on ITV3 at 6am and 6.30am, plus 1.40pm and 2.10pm.

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