More schedule chaos to hit Emmerdale as soap goes back to one-hour format and Sunday episodes

A brief change for Emmerdale as World Cup fever hits
Carena Crawford

Emmerdale will be hit by more schedule chaos in the coming weeks as football fever reaches new heights.

The soap is airing another Sunday night outing next week and will also go back to showing an hour-long episode as well.

A hangover causes Gabby to rethink her lifestyle (Credit: ITV)
No episode will air on Friday next week (Credit: ITV)

Emmerdale hit by more schedule chaos

With the World Cup arriving in June, plus qualifiers for the Women’s World Cup as well, the month is set to look a little different for soap fans.

The first batch of changes have been confirmed. The soap will air an extra episode on Sunday June 7. This is to make up for the fact there is no Friday episode on June 5.

The change is due to England’s women taking on Spain in a World Cup qualifier, which is airing on ITV. Kick-off will be at 8pm, exactly when Emmerdale usually starts, so live coverage of the match build-up will begin earlier in the evening.

Emmerdale is once again taken off air on Tuesday June 9, which is because of another qualifier. This time the women will take on Ukraine.

A car on fire worries Graham (Credit: ITV)
More episodes will be affected in the coming weeks (Credit: ITV)

World Cup chaos continues

On Wednesday June 10 Emmerdale will air at 7pm instead of 8pm and Corrie will follow at 7.30pm.

Then on Thursday (June 11), the soaps are once again off air for the Men’s World Cup Opening Ceremony.

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We will get a catch up episode for that though as the soaps return to their hour-long formats. Emmerdale will air at 8pm, with Corrie at 9pm on Friday June 12.

Corriedale (Credit: ITV)
Corriedale kicked off the soap power hour (Credit: ITV)

Shorter Emmerdale episodes in the schedule

In October 2024, Emmerdale began 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 as stats revealed viewing was way up.

The soap then announced a new schedule. The soap ‘power hour’ starting from January 2026 sees Emmerdale continue to air five nights a week. New episodes also drop on ITVX every morning at 7am as usual.

However, the soap has moved to a new time slot of 8pm. The Thursday double bill was also 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.

However it also seems that the changes don’t stop the disruption caused by sports.

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