As of 2024, only one member of the original cast from the debut episode remains: William Roache, who has played Ken Barlow since December 1960. William Roache is the longest-serving actor in the history of television serials. The previous record-holder was Don Hastings, who played Bob Hughes on the American soap opera As the World Turns (1956), from October 1960, bettering Roache's achievement by two months. He lost his record when that series ended in September 2010.
On Friday April 8 2005, seventeen million viewers watched episode 5,998, in which Ken Barlow remarried ex-wife Deirdre Rachid. This was four million more than had watched the real-life Royal Wedding between H.M. King Charles III and Camilla Parker-Bowles earlier that day. The fictional pair had also been the "other" big wedding event in July 1981, two days before then-Prince Charles married his first wife, Lady Diana Spencer (Princess Diana).
When the opening titles were updated in the mid-1970s, no one noticed the footage of the cat curled on a roof. It was producer Bill Podmore who spotted it, in footage shot for 1975 update, and insisted on its appearance the following year. Now every time they are re-filmed, a cat is used.
Canadian television station CBKST in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan made the Guinness Book of World Records in 1971 when it bought more than 1,140 episodes of this series. The show ran continuously on the station for about twenty years.
There are eighteen writers for the series and they meet every three weeks for two days. Together, they plan fifteen episodes of the show. They each write an episode.
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