I would have to disagree.Eastenders is relentlessly miserable,which undercuts their attempts at humour.Coronation Street has a much better mix of light and dark which reflects life better.
I may be biased, being an Eastenders fan from the word go, but whenever I happen to chance to catch any snippets of corrie, I find it mindless, tacky and totally unwatchable.
I watched Eastenders from the first episode...........but gave up with the introduction of the 'gangsters'. I got fed up with the thuggery explicit and implied, the grinding misery and the weight of unsympathetic characters.
I started to watch Coronation Street again, and found that whilst some of the storylines are light-weight and inconsequential, the balance of light and dark, or humour and sadness, or humour IN sadness is a lot more naturalistic and likely to reflect our own lives..............
there are many awards for 'best soap' there are the TV awards, the magazine awatds, the viewers awards, the BBC awards, the public votes awards, the bafta awards, they all have son them some years one wins one and one another, don't take any notice, the public watch what they want and no amount of award winning will actually win or lose viewers.
I'm from the south and love Corrie. In fact it's the only soap I watch, lots of humour and usually some good storylines and believable characters. (apart from the Gayle/Joe thing!!)