Coronation Street reached a low of eight million in February 1973, when Pat Phoenix quit as Elsie Tanner, Violet Carson (battleaxe Ena Sharples) was written out for most of the year due to illness, and Doris Speed (haughty landlady Annie Walker) took two months' leave due to bereavement. The audience of ITV's other flagship soap opera "Crossroads" increased markedly at this time, as its established cast, such as Meg Richardson (Noele Gordon), grew in popularity. These sudden departures forced the writing team to quickly develop characters who had previously stood in the background. The roles of Bet Lynch (Julie Goodyear), Deirdre Hunt
Coronation Street of shows available from Amazon appears to be from November 2012, as no new episodes have been uploaded. On 15 January 2013, online distributor Hulu began airing episodes of the show, posting a new episode daily, two weeks after their original airdates. For a time, Hulu's website stated: "New episodes of Coronation Street will be unavailable as of April 7th, 2016", with the same being said for British soap "Hollyoaks", but Hulu is once again showing new episodes of Coronation Street as of April 2017, two weeks behind the UK airdate. The BBC/ITV service Britbox shows new episodes on the