[Brekkie]

One thing I've been thinking of, Brookside went 3 times a week in 1990- quite early, Corrie was the only other soap 3 times a week at that point. I wonder if they'd gone 4 times a week in the late 90s, it might have helped the shows fortunes? Part of the problem by the time we got into the 00s was all the extra episodes of The Bill, Emmerdale, EastEnders and Corrie making it hard for Brookside to get a place in the schedules, maybe if they'd been able to introduce an extra episode before most of those shows expanded, maybe they'd have got a foot in the door and the other soaps would have had to work around Brookside, rather than the other way round.

I don't think so really - the BBC didn't think twice about putting EastEnders in Brooksides slot on the Monday, forcing it to move to Tuesday according to the varous wikis (though I thought it had a stint on Mondays at 8.30).     Can't find any ratings history at the moment but I thought Brookie was still rating pretty strong in the mid-90s - not at the level of EastEnders and Corrie of course, but significantly enough that you'd have thought it would be a factor in scheduling against it. 

It probably made more sense for C4 and indeed Mersey TV to split the risk and commission Hollyoaks in 1995 than to add further episodes of Brookside.   If Hollyoaks had failed they might have added a fourth episode of Brookside, but of course that's not how things panned out and although Brookside ultimately came to an end the production company (through Lime Pictures now) is still providing C4 with it's flagship soap 20 years after their original came to an end.