Emmerdale Emmerdale Emmerdale (known as Emmerdale Farm until 1989) is a British soap opera set in Emmerdale (known as Beckindale until 1994), a fictional village in the Yorkshire Dales. Created by Kevin Laffan, "Emmerdale Farm" was first broadcast on 16 October 1972. Produced by ITV Yorkshire, it has been filmed at their Leeds studio since its inception. The programme is broadcast in every ITV region. The series originally aired during the afternoon until 1978, when it was moved to an early-evening prime time slot in most regions; London and Anglia followed during the mid-1980s. Until December 1988, "Emmerdale" took seasonal breaks;
Emmerdale soap's popularity gradually began to improve. Richardson produced the programme for 24 years, overseeing its transformation from a minor, daytime, rural drama into a major prime time UK soap opera. By 1993, "Emmerdale" was beginning its third decade on the air. December 1993 saw a major turning point in the show's history, when an episode featured a plane crashing into the village of Beckindale, killing four main characters. The episode gave "Emmerdale" its highest-ever audience of 18 million and marked its "graduation" into a major prime time soap opera. The plane crash "allowed the writers to get rid of much