EastEnders Beats Coronation Street To Be Voted Most Popular British Soap

Of course, there are those among us who would rather stick pins into our eyes than watch even a single second of any of them, but that's not the opinion we're after here.

They have provided some of British telly's most iconic moments over the years, and millions of people tune in to watch them every night, so they must be doing something right.

In the end, 41 percent of voters said EastEnders was their favourite, with perennial ITV rival Coronation Street finishing a relatively close second with 35.7 percent of the overall vote.

It's then quite a long way back to the two other options, but Emmerdale managed to squeak into third place with just 12.4 percent of the vote, and Hollyoaks picked up the wooden spoon in last place with only 10.9 percent.

In total, 8,455 votes were cast, meaning it was a decent sample size.

EastEnders has been running since 19 February 1985 when the British public was first introduced to the residents of Albert Square.

It started out as just two episodes per week, but quickly proved so popular that they increased that to three.

Since 2001, they've been churning out episodes at a rate of knots, with one every weekday with the exception of Wednesday, barring special occasions.

It's easily one of the most consistent shows on the BBC in terms of ratings, and - as of 2020 - episodes typically have a viewership of between five and seven million people.

Impressive, given that it's generally a pretty bleak show.

However, it has to go some way to catching up with Coronation Street, which - while it might not be the most popular in our poll - is by far and away the longest-running soap on the telly.

The first episode was broadcast on 9 December 1960, and it is still going on strong to this day.

Obviously, there have been breaks - the Covid-19 pandemic most recently - but that is some impressive longevity.

Either way, both show no signs of slowing down at the minute, and people are obviously still tuning in, so there's much more mileage within the soap genre yet.