Emmerdale is on every week night – good news for us fans! Plus there is an hour-long episode every Thursday.
It usually airs at 7.30pm on ITV but it’s always good to double check because sometimes schedules change for football matches or other major events.
Emmerdale on ITVX
You can also catch Emmerdale on ITVX. All episodes from this year are there to view as well as some from the end of last year, too.
Plus there are previews, extras and all sorts of other snippets available for fans to catch up on.
Of course we weren’t always so lucky to be treated to this many episodes of Emmerdale each week.
Emmerdale schedules back in the day
When the show first started WAAAAY back in 1972 it was broadcast on Tuesday afternoon and Thursday afternoon – and that was it! And there was no catch-up TV then, so if you missed an episode, that was that.
In 1977, the episodes were moved to the evenings – phew! And so it was for twenty years, until in 1997 they added another episode, on Wednesday evenings.
But that wasn’t enough! So the show’s bosses decided to add some extra! And in October 2000 two more weekly episodes were added, this time on a Monday and a Friday.
In 2004, a Sunday evening episode was added to the list, making Emmerdale the first soap with six weekly episodes – impressive stuff.
After that, things got a bit complicated!
Social distancing
In 2008, the Sunday episode was scrapped and to make up for it, a longer hour-long episode was screened on Tuesdays. Emmerdale bosses were clear that this wasn’t just two half-hour eps mushed together, but actually a specially filmed hour-long episode.
In 2009 things changed again with Tuesdays going back down to half an hour, while an extra episode was aired on Thursday, half an hour after the first finished.
Then in 2019, ANOTHER episode was added to the Tuesday schedule meaning there were now seven episodes of Emmerdale every week.
During the Covid pandemic, episodes were reduced and aired on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Filming stopped between March and June of 2020 and when it resumed it was under strict social distancing restrictions and most episodes only featured two or three characters filmed by a skeleton crew.
In September 2020 Emmerdale returned to its usual schedule.
In January 2022, things changed again. Now Emmerdale airs at 7.30pm – the first change to its time slot since the seventies. And the Thursday double episodes were replaced with an hour-long ep.
And that’s how it’s stayed since then!
Classic Emmerdale
As well as modern day Emmerdale, die-hard fans can watch Classic Emmerdale episodes on ITV3 every single day!
These usually air at 1.30pm and 2.05pm, and are then repeated the next morning at 6am and 6.30am.
At the moment episodes from 2005 are airing and it sees the King family feuds at the heart of the action.
Emmerdale usually airs weeknights on ITV at 7.30pm.
Classic Emmerdale usually airs every weekday on ITV3 at 6am and 6.30am, plus 1.30pm and 2.05pm.