Coronation Street (also known as “Corrie”) is a soap opera shown during primetime. It is now the longest running TV soap in the world, having first been shown on 9 December 1960; its 50th birthday is next week. The series’ creator, Tony Warren, had to fight to persuade the Granada Television executives that the show could be a success; there had never before been a soap that centred around working class characters (at least in the English-speaking world).
The series is set in a fictional suburb of Manchester, a large city in the northwest of England. It exposed southern English audiences to a northern urban landscape, as well as a northern accent, for the first time. However, critics complained that the programme portrayed a northern working class community as it might have been in the 1950s; following this, various efforts were made to give Corrie a more up-to-date feel.
Coronation St is or has been shown in various countries, including Canada, Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Australia, and New Zealand. The German soap “Lindenstraße” was inspired by Coronation St.
More information: http://coronationstreetupdates.blogspot.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronation_Street
http://www.corrie.net/