Phil Redmond 1978–2008), "Brookside" (Channel 4, 1982–2003) and "Hollyoaks" (Channel 4, 1995—). For over twenty years he also ran his own independent production company, Mersey Television, before selling off the company in 2005. Redmond also created the daytime legal drama, "The Courtroom" which was cancelled after 38 episodes. In 2013 Phil Redmond published his autobiography Mid-Term Report. In 2016 Phil Redmond published his first novel Highbridge which was follow up from a short Ebook called "Hightbridge the Beginning" which was published in 2015. In 1989, Redmond was awarded the post of Honorary Professor of Media Studies at Liverpool John Moores University, where
Soap opera 2000s, ABC began to revitalize the primetime soap opera format with shows such as "Desperate Housewives", "Grey's Anatomy", "Brothers & Sisters", "Ugly Betty", "Private Practice", and more recently "Revenge", "Nashville", "Scandal", "Mistresses", and formerly "Ringer", which its sister production company ABC Studios co-produced with CBS Television Studios for The CW. While not soaps in the traditional sense, these shows managed to appeal to wide audiences with their high drama mixed with humor, and are soap operas by definition. These successes led to NBC's launching serials, including "Heroes" and "Friday Night Lights". The upstart MyNetworkTV, a sister network of Fox, launched