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[[Image:Ken barlow.jpg|right|thumb|250px|Ken Barlow in the first episode of ''Coronation Street''.]]
The serial began on [[December 9]], [[1960]], and was not initially a critical success. Granada commissioned only 13 episodes and some inside the company doubted the show would last its planned production run. However it caught the imagination of viewers, not least because of its ___location in the [[North of England]], which was becoming a highly fashionable and visible centre of 1960s Britain, thanks in part to classics of [[British New Wave|British new wave]] cinema such as ''[[Billy Liar (film)|Billy Liar]]'' and ''[[Saturday Night and Sunday Morning]]'', the "[[kitchen sink drama|kitchen-sink]]" dramas of the [[BBC]]'s ''[[The Wednesday Play]]'' and the rise of [[The Beatles]], from nearby [[Liverpool]]. Like kitchen-sink dramas, ''Coronation Street'' focused on the plight of "ordinary folk", making use of Northern English language and [[dialect]]. Affectionate local terms like "eh, chuck?", "nowt" and "by heck!" became widely heard on British TV for the first time.
The storylines focussed on the experiences of families and their interaction, and on relationships between individuals of different ages, classes and social structures. Stories also addressed how working-class people made a caste system in their own mini-society and excommunicated others they did not wish to associate with. In reality, many of the people deemed too common (like Elsie Tanner or Stan & Hilda Ogden) were of the exact same stock as those who were judging them.
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