In 1972 the soap opera Emmerdale farm was added to the ITV listings, this was later to be known as simply Emmerdale. It’s set in the fictional village of emmerdale, until 1994 the area was referred to as Beckinsdale, the village is designed as to appear as a typical Yorkshire dale setting although filmed in nearby Leeds. The soap is third behind coronation street and East Enders as the country's most popular, originally an afternoon based show it now appears each weekday evening and again in omnibus style at weekends.

The show celebrated its 35 th anniversary in 1997 with a massive petrol powered explosion ,it celebrated its 5000^th edition the following year with the marriage of long standing show members Eric Pollard and Val Lambert.The original format for Emmerdale was a focal point of the farm and the people who lived on it and in the nearby village. The show was fairly original for British soaps in that it was filmed out doors on a proper farm with proper animals and proper farm equipment when the story called for it.

The norm at the time was to have everything studio based and with very controlled outdoor scenes. This process made the show appear more real than others shown at the time and in fact some now which are filmed in the warm and dry, this also allows for spectacular backdrops and for real weather. Initially the show was focussed mainly in and around the farm, as the village life became more important to the story the show became known as simply Emmerdale. This change in title came around in 1989, after the shows infamous plane crash story line of 1994 the village also changed its name,again to Emmerdale.

When the change came around so did the Tate family, a group that even surpassed the long standing Sugdens as a major force in the show. Later on in the the early 200,s the shows main family's became the dingle and the king clans. The families existed in a family unit in one house and also through various other homes via various relationships. A new family is coming to the show in order to become a new focus for the show, the Wyldes will be the new family seen around the village and will take over the focus of the king family who are down to their last three members.

Over the years the soap has covered many different major story themes in order to keep up the interest in the show. The most famous was probably the plane crash in 1993 which saw a number of people killed, numerous buildings destroyed and even a few sheep burnt. Other stories have included a major storm which occurred exactly 10 years after the crash, damage from this storm killed Tricia dingle and resulted in various people being trapped by floods and debris. There have been a large amount of deaths and injuries related to driving and being on the road, also fires have finished a few characters off as well.