Emmerdale is a British soap opera first broadcast on 16 October 1972. The following is a list of characters that appeared in 2016, by order of first appearance. Pierce Harris (Jonathan Wrather), the husband of established character Tess Harris (Nicola Stephenson), was introduced in February, along with Ryan Harred (George Sampson) and Aaron Livesy's (Danny Miller) half-sister, Liv Flaherty (Isobel Steele). The first birth of the year was in March when Megan Macey (Gaynor Faye) and Jai Sharma's (Chris Bisson) daughter, Eliza Sharma, was born. Holly Barton's (Sophie Powles) ex-boyfriend Dean (Craig Vye) first appeared in March, while Ronnie Hale (John McArdle) was introduced in April as a relation to the White family. Tracy Shankley's (Amy Walsh) father, Frank Clayton (Michael Praed) joined the show in August and Dotty Thomas made the second birth of the year in September. Lawrence White's (John Bowe) daughter, Rebecca White (Emily Head), was introduced in October and the final character to be introduced in 2016 was Will Scott (Ben Gerrard), who made his first appearance in December. Additionally, multiple other characters appeared in 2016.