Channel 4 drop weeknight Hollyoaks screening

Hollyoaks will become the UK’s first streaming-led soap by making episodes available to stream the day before they are broadcast on E4. For the first time, new episodes will also be available to watch on YouTube the week after streaming and broadcast on E4.

Channel 4 states that the series is ‘adopting a simpler and more relevant digital-focused drop pattern to meet how young audiences find and watch content.’ Hollyoaks’s third viewing window will move from Channel 4’s linear channel to YouTube as the show becomes the UK’s first national digital-led soap. In 2023 64% of viewers have watched the soap via streaming or E4, resulting in 556 million minutes of the show being streamed in the first half of the year. The weekly omnibus will continue to be broadcast on Channel 4.

Channel 4’s Chief Content Officer, Ian Katz:

“Hollyoaks has always been the youngest and most innovative soap so it’s fitting that it should be the first to embrace the changes in the behaviour of younger viewers and switch to a genuinely digital-led release pattern. It was the first UK soap to move to a stream-first model last year and this is the next phase of that evolution. We hope making Hollyoaks available on YouTube, as well as our own platforms, will introduce a whole new generation to the show.”

The new schedule pattern launches on Monday 25th September alongside a massive stunt week of spectacular and standout storylines set to grip audiences in dramatic scenes shot in sensational new locations.

The week kicks off with a show-stopping one hour special where viewers will see the love triangle between Felix, his girlfriend Mercedes and best friend Warren reach an explosive turning point and elsewhere there’s murder twists and turns, as a disturbing secret is uncovered about influencer Rayne, that could ultimately lead to her downfall.

Hollyoaks has underperformed in the ratings for some time on the main channel, with the E4 screening always traditionally the more popular offering. In apparent cost-cutting a number of executives have also recently been announced as departing the Merseyside produced serial. Production company Lime Pictures – as Mersey Television – also produced the cul-de-sac saga Brookside which was also moved around the schedules on Channel 4 before being unceremoniously dumped after 21 years in 2003. The Liverpool set soap is currently proving a hit for the STV Player with reruns of 1980s episodes currently streaming on the service.