LONDON — “Coronation Street,” Britain’s (and the world’s) longest-running soap opera, which has chronicled working-class life near Manchester, England, since 1960, is introducing the first black family in the history of the series.

“Say hello to the Bailey family,” the show’s producers said in an announcement on Saturday. “A brand-new family moving to Weatherfield in June this year!” they added, referring to the fictional town based on Salford, an industrial city about two miles west of the center of Manchester.

The announcement did not address the family’s race or ethnicity, but the show’s network, ITV, said the black family would be the show’s first.

To many observers, the addition, while welcome, came astonishingly late for a show, known as “Corrie,” that debuted in December 1960 and that has been watched by up to a third of the British public — including, reports say, Queen Elizabeth II.