Hollyoaks taken off Channel 4 as part of scheduling shake-up to 'embrace change'

Hollyoaks has been taken off Channel 4 as part of a shake-up of its broadcast schedule.

Episodes of the show will now air on E4 - Channel 4's sister channel - and be available via its streaming service a day beforehand.

The weekly omnibus will continue to be broadcast on Channel 4.

Channel 4's strategy, which makes Hollyoaks the UK's first national digital led soap, will also see episodes uploaded to YouTube the week after they are streamed and broadcast on E4.

The broadcaster said it is making the changes to meet how younger audiences consume content.

In 2023, 64% of viewers watched the soap via streaming or E4, resulting in 556 million minutes of the show being streamed in the first half of the year.

The new broadcasting schedule will launch on Monday September 25 and kick-off with a special hour long episode.

Channel 4's Chief Content Officer, Ian Katz, said he hopes a "whole new generation" will be introduced to the show by making episodes available on YouTube.

He said: "Hollyoaks has always been the youngest and most innovative soap so it's fitting that it should be the first to embrace the changes in the behaviour of younger viewers and switch to a genuinely digital-led release pattern.

"It was the first UK soap to move to a stream-first model last year and this is the next phase of that evolution."

Hollyoaks first aired on Channel 4 in 1995 and has released more than 6,000 episodes to date.

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