In a bold move today, ITV and the BBC announced that three soaps will merge into one jointly-produced mega-soap.
The programme, based on a farm off a cobbled street in the east end of London, will be called East Emmerdale Street.
The plotlines will include a farmer's wife who has an affair with a pub landlord who kills his family by driving them into a dock; a smoking bible-basher who gets elected to the council and then arrested for killing his lover with a statue, and a massive overweight loudmouth butcher who has a nervous breakdown whilst out poaching with a gay lover.
The soap will be broadcast on 3 terrestrial and 48 digital channels 7 nights a week from 7:30 until 9pm.
Actors are fearful of redundancies, although producers have assured them that as there now will be more characters and diverse plotlines, filming schedules will be much easier.
William Roache, star of Coronation Street, was positively slavering over possible storylines of his character getting to grips with "those fit Emmerdale birds, especially that barmaid, Louise Appleton" instead of "that pug ugly fat bitch" who plays Denise.
Steve McFadden, who plays Phil Mitchell, was also looking forward to getting "steamed into" that Ashley Peacock's missus. "Always fancied a bird with big glasses. Wanted to have a pop at that Diedrie Barlow when she were younger, " he said.
Producers haven't yet managed to work out how it's all going to come together, but it is rumoured that some kind of disease such as was used in "28 Days Later" to get everyone to move, with some unpopular characters dying off horribly, such as Pat Butcher and Zak Dingle. After they've had an affair, of course.
