Tony Hutchinson This was the first time an actor/actress from Hollyoaks had received the award. Tony Hutchinson Tony Hutchinson is a fictional character from the British Channel 4 soap opera "Hollyoaks;" he is played by Nick Pickard. Tony first appeared on-screen on 23 October 1995 and is currently the longest serving character in the soap. The character was created by Phil Redmond as one of several main characters for the soap opera. Tony has since been part of various storylines including marriages to Mandy Richardson (Sarah Jayne Dunn), her stepsister Cindy Cunningham (Stephanie Waring) and Diane O'Connor (Alex Fletcher), an affair with
Soap opera period was a decline in advertising during the Great Recession, which led shows to reduce their budgets and cast sizes. In addition to these external factors, a litany of production decisions has been cited by soap opera fans as contributing to the genre's decline, such as cliched plots, a lack of diversity that narrowed audience appeal, and the elimination of core families. Serials produced for primetime slots have also found success. The first primetime soap opera was "Faraway Hill" (1946), which aired on October 2, 1946, on the now-defunct DuMont Television Network. "Faraway Hill" ran for 12 episodes and was