It’s the most iconic, not to mention longest running, television show in Britain.
But Coronation Street, the 64-year-old ITV soap, is in chaos after the channel have failed to find a boss to run it.
can reveal that a number of television executives have turned down the prestigious job – leaving the network with a ‘huge headache.’
ITV’s top drama boss and former editor of The Archers Huw Kennair-Jones has been drafted in to sort the problem out and he has approached a number of top television executives working at the BBC, Channel 4 and Sky in a bid to lure them across.
But so far, he has failed to entice anyone to manage the show, which is set in the fictional town of Weatherfield, after Iain McLeod left the position of Coronation Street’s boss for a bigger role at the broadcaster after six years last week.
As a stop gap, MacLeod’s wife and deputy on Corrie, Verity MacLeod, is filling in until they find someone to take the job.
Staff at ITV say that this is putting off potential candidates because they don’t want to be working in between the married couple, something that is now referred to internally as the ‘MacLeod sandwich.’
Iain McLeod left the position of Coronation Street’s boss for a bigger role at the broadcaster after six years
The iconic Coronation Street is the longest running soap in the world. It began in 1960 and has been running for the 64 years since
William Roache, 91, has played Ken Barlow in the soap for 64 years since it was first broadcast
One insider told : ‘ITV have had conversations with a number of television executives who are currently working on other serial dramas or have in the past been at the helm of big shows.
‘But no one wants to do it. One of the things putting people off is the fact that you’d be answering to Iain while having his wife as your deputy.
‘It’s a “MacLeod sandwich” that no one wants to be in the middle of and it’s now become even more of a headache for ITV.’
In recent years, Corrie, which still stars William Roache as Ken Barlow, and has come under fire for abandoning its loyal audience, its obsession with younger characters and a number of ‘unbelievable’ plot lines.
Show insiders say that there have been a number of conversations amongst the top brass at ITV that Corrie series producer Iain MacLeod had been in the job too long after joining the show back in 2018 because it is a role that has always changed hands every two to three years.
One said: ‘Corrie has always been a job for two to three years. It needs that change every few years to bring in new ideas, while staying loyal to its DNA and keeping the viewers happy.
‘It’s one of the biggest and most prestigious jobs in television. There had been some noise for a while with talk of the ‘Corrie problem’ so by creating this new role ITV across both soaps it saw it as the answer to both Corrie as well as Jane Hudson’s departure at Emmerdale.’
Corrie’s most-watched episode – with 26.65 million viewers – is still Christmas Day 1987, when Hilda Ogden left Weatherfield for the last time until she reprised the role for a few specials.
But this Wednesday’s show was watched by just 3.2 million and last year it missed out on the top 10 most watched TV programmes of Christmas Day with just 2.6 million tuning in – down eight million from a decade before.
Earlier this year, actress Maureen Lipman, 77, who has played Evelyn Plummer since 2018, urged the soap to scrap gritty storylines and go back to basics.
Verity MacLeod poses in the Winners Room at the Virgin Media British Academy Television Awards in 2008
Huw Kennair-Jones is in charge of finding the next boss of Coronation Street
She said: ‘We’ve come to a point in Corrie now where people are getting murdered in knicker factories. We’re having domestic abuse. Anything that ticks the box of social problems in the 21st century is going to be in your local soap.’
Speaking on the Beyond The Title podcast, she continued: ‘Whereas back then you had the freedom to put Martha [Longhurst], Minnie [Caldwell] and Ena [Sharples] in the snug and have a conversation about Ben-Hur.
‘It’s never been political but I always like it when the women sit down and go, ‘Ooh, Donald Trump, ain’t his hair shocking.’”
She added: ‘All those wonderful expressions that your parents come out with, like my mother saying, ‘Ooh, doesn’t a black skirt cover a multitude of sins.’ People talk like that, and we recognise it as true.’
Fans have also taken to Twitter to voice their opinions. One said: ‘I used to love Corrie but I find it so rubbish at the moment. Some of the scenes make me cringe. Acting and writing is awful they are miles behind EastEnders.’
Another said: ‘Corrie needs new producers absolutely rubbish now.’