Coronation Street is ITV's most popular soap

Favourite characters from one of the soaps could be given their own show, Granada's head of drama John Whiston told the Radio Times.

Suggestions include a series set in Mike Baldwin's Underworld factory, or at the vet's practice from Emmerdale.

ITV have been searching for a winning daytime soap after the failure of Crossroads and Night And Day.

Rural drama

Granada head of drama John Whiston told the listings magazine: "We'd use some familiar characters from one of the original soaps to draw an audience to the new show.

"The BBC did this well with Casualty and Holby City, and we've done it well with Heartbeat and The Royal."

Rural drama Where The Heart Is is also in the running for a spin-off series.

Whiston said: "I think ITV will try these ideas out. I don't think they'll commit to a year and a half of an untried soap again - Crossroads and Night And Day proved it's very hard to do that."

He said he was not worried that the spin-offs would harm the original soaps.