Soap opera only lasted one year. Nevertheless, soap operas gained increasing prominence on UK television schedules. In 1995, Channel 4 premiered "Hollyoaks", a soap with a youth focus. When Channel 5 launched in March 1997, it debuted the soap opera "Family Affairs", which was formatted as a week-daily soap, airing Monday through Fridays. "Brookside"s premise evolved during the 1990s, phasing out the politicised stories of the 1980s and shifting the emphasis to controversial and sensationalist stories such as child rape, sibling incest, religious cults and drug addiction, including the infamous 'body under the patio' storyline that ran from 1993 to 1995, and
Soap opera Christmas Day episode of "EastEnders" is often referred to as the highest-rated UK soap opera episode ever, with 30.15 million viewers (more than half the population at the time). The figure of 30.15 million was actually a combination of the original broadcast, which had just over 19 million viewers, and the Sunday omnibus edition with 10 million viewers. The combined 30.15 million audience figure makes the aforementioned Christmas Day 1986 episode of "EastEnders" the highest-rated single-channel broadcast in the history of UK television. Overall it ranks third behind the 1966 FIFA World Cup Final (32.3 million viewers) and Princess Diana's