Die-hard EastEnders fans save show

US EastEnders fans raise money to keep the show alive

Die-hard EastEnders fans in Washington DC are planning an Albert Square-style knees-up after saving the soap from the axe.

The fanatical viewers were distraught last year when they found out that their beloved show was to be ditched in the area this month.

But a furious campaign, spearheaded by a classics professor and a real estate lawyer, has raised more than £26,000 to pay for WETA, the local branch of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), to keep the residents of Walford on air for two more years.

The station's bosses had previously decided that at a cost of almost £13,000 a year, EastEnders was not a good investment, especially as each episode can only be shown once.

After a Bonfire Night rallying party attended by civil servants, academics, company directors and high-ranking medical professionals, University of Maryland professor Judith Hallett and fellow E20 enthusiast Michael Gordon met WETA's bigwigs and offered to raise the cash to save the show.

They were told to get 50,000 dollars by January 16, and ended up with 143 donations totalling 52,504 dollars.

WETA's vice-president of external affairs, Mary Stewart, said she had never seen anything like the campaign in 17 years at the station.

"I do have to say it's an amazing group of members who really rallied around what they care about for us," she told the Washington Post.

EastEnders launched to much fanfare in the US in 1988 and at one point was on more than 50 PBS stations.

That number has now dwindled to just nine, but there are still pockets of obsessive fans across America. In Washington around 8,000 households tune in every week.