Coronation Street tops Friday soap ratings with 7.8 million

Coronation Street's Friday audience was knocked as it suffered from its traditional biennial clash with Comic Relief.



With EastEnders off air, the Weatherfield soap predictably topped the soap ratings by a large distance for a double bill which saw Chesney find out about Katy's affair with Ryan.

Some 7.83 million, a 31.4% share, watched the opening 7.30pm episode as well as 139,000 on +1 - more than in the last Red Nose Day clash in 2011 when the ITV serial could only muster 7.2m.

After a half-hour break, Corrie returned at 8.30pm with a smaller audience of 7.21m (26.6%), but added 219k on ITV +1.

Emmerdale logged 6.3m (28.2%) earlier at 7pm and 143k an hour later for an episode centered around Brenda's brain tumour.

Elsewhere, Hollyoaks took 955k (4.7%) as Brendan fell into Walker's trap in Channel 4's 6.30pm broadcast, then E4's first look grabbed 568k (2.5%).

Neighbours fetched 661k (8.2%) at 1.45pm and 929k (5.7%) at 5.30pm for its latest Channel 5 instalment, while Home and Away appealed to 808k (4.3%) at 6pm before 5*'s first look nabbed 493k (2.4%).

Finally, Doctors averaged 1.56m (19.4%) on BBC One earlier in the day for a story titled 'Nessun Dorma'.