NTAs shock as EastEnders LOSES best soap to ITV rival

THE National Television Awards delivered a shock as EastEnders lost best soap to an ITV rival.

The BBC soap went up against Emmerdale, Coronation Street, Hollyoaks and Casualty in the Serial Drama category at tonight’s annual awards ceremony.

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Having won the category last year, the stars were clearly hoping to make it a back to back win.

But despite putting up a strong fight with big storylines like Keanu Taylor’s death, The Six’s subsequent cover up and the likes of Cindy Beale’s shock return, it seems soap fans preferred the action in the fictional Yorkshire village.

Emmerdale has also had some big storylines this past year including Belle Dingle’s harrowing abuse at the hands of husband Tom King, as well as the love triangle between Charity Dingle, Mackenzie Boyd and Chloe Harris leading to their car plunging over a ravine.

Paralympians Kadeena Cox and Dame Sarah Storey announced the news at the ceremony at London’s O2 Arena tonight, with the Emmerdale cast going wild.

But some viewers at home were not as impressed by the result.

Taking to X – formerly Twitter – one raged: “how the actual f*** have emmerdale just won that.”

Another wrote: “In what world did Eastenders not win that??”

A third tweeted: “Emmerdale?! Wow.”

Meanwhile a fourth moaned: “on a real, casualty has been robbed there ..”

EastEnders was dealt a further blow as it also missed out on the Serial Drama Performance gong, despite having two of the five nominations.

Angela Wynter was nominated for her role as Yolande Trueman, while Diane Parish also got a nod for her work as Denise Fox.

But it was Peter Ash who triumphed for his role as Paul Foreman in Coronation Street.

ITV viewers were left in floods of tears on Monday night when Paul passed away after a tragic battle with MND, and many clearly felt Peter deserved the award for the heart-wrenching storyline.

EastEnders’ shock loss – My Expert View

BY CARL GREENWOOD, SOAPS EDITOR

EASTENDERS fans will no doubt be in shock tonight after the BBC soap lost out on the Best Serial Drama award at the National Television Awards. 

Instead ITV rival Emmerdale clinched the publicly-voted award. 

And there was no joy for ‘Enders in the other category with Coronation Street star Peter Ash clinching the best dramatic performance award. 

There can be no doubt that EastEnders is enjoying a major revival with The Six and Keanu Taylor’s murder. 

But it seems like fans could be tiring of the storyline and the soap will need to pull out all the stops to regain votes if it wants to win again. 

No matter all the stunts – and the recently announced twist of letting the audience decide the ending to a plot in the upcoming live episode – these awards show that fans want solid writing, decent characters and top notch drama. 

The National Television Awards airs on ITV1 and is available on ITVX.