Five (channel)

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Five
Launched	30 March 1997
Owned by	RTL Group
Audience share	4.8% (February 2007, [1])
Country	United Kingdom
Formerly called	Channel 5 (1997-2002)
Sister channel(s)	Five Life Five US
Website	www.five.tv
Availability
Terrestrial
UK analogue	Normally tuned to 5
Freeview	Channel 5
Satellite
Sky Digital	Channel 105
Cable
Virgin Media	Channel 105

Five (or five) is the fifth and final national analogue terrestrial TV channel to launch in the United Kingdom. Formerly named Channel 5, many (including the media) refer to the channel by this name to this present day.

Contents 1 Company 2 History 2.1 Launch 2.2 Rumoured merger 2.3 Recent and future branding 2.4 Multi-channel strategy 3 Broadcasting and reception 4 Programming 4.1 General 4.2 Entertainment 4.3 Daytime 4.4 Lifestyle 4.5 Children and Teenagers 4.6 Drama and Comedy 4.7 Sport 4.8 News 4.9 Participation TV 5 Current Programmes 5.1 Americas Finest 5.2 Aquired programing 5.3 Comedy 5.4 Extrodenry Minds 5.5 Sport 5.6 Home Grown 5.7 Talk Shows/Gameshows 5.8 Others 6 Upcoming Programmes 7 See also 8 References 9 External links

[edit] Company

Channel 5 Broadcasting Limited (As of 2006, still the legal name of the company, though it now trades exclusively as five) was licensed by the UK Government in 1995 after an exhaustive bidding process that lasted from 1993 and throughout 1994. The initial round of bidders, which included a network of city-TV stations planned by Thames Television, was rejected outright and the Independent Television Commission contemplated not awarding the licence at all.

The difficulty with the project lay in use of television broadcast frequencies that had been allocated to RF outputs from domestic video recorders. To achieve national coverage, large numbers of domestic video recorders (which output at a nearby frequency) had to be retuned or fitted with a filter, at the bidding company's expense.

The project was revived in mid 1994 when the Independent Television Commission re-advertised the franchise. Tom McGrath, then-president of Time Warner International Broadcasting, put together a revised frequency plan with NTL and consulting engineer Ellis Griffiths, involving less re-tuning and greater signal coverage. Lord Clive Hollick, then CEO of Meridian Broadcasting (later United News) took up the project as lead investor as UK law prohibited Time Warner from owning more than 25%. Ironically, when McGrath left to become President of Paramount, Time Warner dropped out of the project and was replaced by CLT/RTL who today control the network.

[edit] History

[edit] Launch

The channel was launched on Sunday 30 March 1997 with Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book and then the Spice Girls took over the launch show and performed a "reverse" cover of the 60s hit "5-4-3-2-1".

[edit] Rumoured merger

On 27 February 2004 it was reported that Five and Channel 4 were discussing a possible merger; this was widely seen as a potential upset for Channel 4's pride. Some comics joked that the merged company should call itself Chanel 9 [sic] after the spoof foreign network on The Fast Show. Channel 4 and Five announced that merger plans were being called off in November of that year.

On 20 July 2005, RTL Group paid £247.6 million for United Business Media's 35.4% stake in the channel. The acquisition was approved on 26 August 2005.

[edit] Recent and future branding

On 23 January 2006, Five launched new idents which are based on human emotions. Instead of displaying the channel's logo, each ident displays a word that is suggestive of what is being shown (using Five's current branding style), such as 'love', 'hope', 'rush' and 'live'. Prior to the relaunch Five released a preview of the "love" ident. The ident has sperm with the word "love" forming from an egg. However as of January 2007, the emotion names have been replaced with the word "Five" yet again.

Five aired new Christmas idents, supporting the Christmas homeless appeal in the UK. Starting on the 11 December, the idents feature a forest, a post box, a narrowboat and a train, culminating with a final cityscape all decorated with Christmas lights. As well as the word 'five' the word 'give' also appears in these unique idents.

Five celebrated its tenth birthday in 2007, from the 26 March - 30 March. Special idents were shown with the slogan Five is ten to celebrate ten years since the channel's launch in 1997.

[edit] Multi-channel strategy

British television has undergone a lot of change since Five's launch with the huge growth in Digital television. See Digital television in the United Kingdom.

On 18 November 2005, it was announced that Five had bought a stake in DTT's pay-TV operator, Top Up TV. It was said that the investment may lead to the development of new free and pay services on DTT, and other platforms.^[1]

Following this, Five launched two new digital TV channels in autumn 2006 on Freeview, Sky, NTL & Telewest:^[2]

• Five Life, launched on 15 October 2006, providing pre-school shows under the milkshake! banner as well as drama, films, soaps, popular factual and lifestyle shows aimed at women.
• Five US, launched on 16 October 2006, offering drama, films, sport, comedy and youth programming from across the Atlantic.

Spin-offs from Five's existing hits also air on the new outlets.

The channels use Digital Terrestrial space that was previously occupied by Top Up TV's channels, but viewers will not require a Top Up TV subscription, or pay extra to receive the new channels. The channels will be funded by a "substantial additional investment" from the broadcaster's parent company RTL.^[3]

[edit] Broadcasting and reception

The British frequency plan had only allowed for four channels to be transmitted over the whole of the UK using analogue terrestrial transmitters. The ITC had identified that UHF channels 35 and 37 could provide coverage of around 70% of the UK population. However, these channels were used by many domestic video recorders for RF connection to television sets. Before the channel could launch on Easter Sunday 1997 the broadcaster had to provide over-the-phone instructions or visit any home that complained to retune the video recorder or fit a filter to completely block the Channel 5 signal.

However, for many transmitters channels 35 and 37 were 'out of group', which meant that the roof-top receiving aerials were specifically designed to filter out the Channel 5's broadcasts. The channel was provided on the analogue Astra/BSkyB service, but many people either could not receive the channel at all, or required a new aerial. The broadcaster had added to the transmitters to improve the analogue terrestrial coverage since that time.

Unlike the other four analogue British television channels, the channel cannot be received via analogue terrestrial broadcasts in many areas, including some parts of the south coast of England, where the signal would otherwise interfere with signals from television stations in France, many areas in Scotland and parts of Cumbria. The channel is available on all digital platforms (Sky Digital satellite, and Freeview digital terrestrial, and also most cable operators).

The channel was the first in the UK to use a permanent digital on-screen graphic, which was unpopular with the viewing public and removed altogether on 16 September 2002.^[4]

[edit] Programming

[edit] General

The launch soap opera Family Affairs, a five-night a week soap was pulled on 30 December 2005, due to low ratings freeing up £10 million for other programming.^[5]

Initially the schedule had films at 9pm each night, followed by erotic programs and football at the weekends.

In the 2000s, the schedule relied on imported American series CSI (including spin-offs CSI: Miami and CSI: NY), Law & Order (including spin-offs Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Law & Order: Criminal Intent), Alias, LEXX, Star Trek: Voyager, Stargate Atlantis, Prison Break, NCIS, Charmed, Grey's Anatomy and House. Five paid for Friends' hyped spin off Joey which had an audience of 4.53 million at launch, making 13 February 2005 a high water mark for the channel's viewing.

As a public service broadcaster, Five is required to show educational programs, including some moderately successful documentaties, such as the Hidden Lives series. This climaxed when Christmas Day 2004 was advertised as "World War II Day" (a day of repeats) on Five. In 2005 Five acquired another public service figleaf - the rights to the annual Royal Institution Christmas Lectures.

In October, November, and December of 2006, Five aired A Girl's Guide to 21st Century Sex, an 8-part TV series about sex that was billed as a documentary.

[edit] Entertainment

Five broadcast the cult Australian soap Prisoner Cell Block H with the first episode being broadcast on 30 March 1997 and the two final episodes being broadcast back-to-back on 11 February 2001. All 692 episodes were broadcast, including a special spin off with quiz show 100% which had a Prisoner Special during a Prisoner Night in June 1997

Five also aired another Australian classic Sons and Daughters with the first episode in March 1998 and the final episode in November 2005, all 972 episodes were broadcast.

Five failed to obtain The Simpsons (the terrestrial rights going to Channel 4) but obtained the Australian soap opera Home and Away, and the cancelled ITV music show CD:UK.

Five beat the BBC to the rights for a UK version of The Mole. This was extremely well received by its (still comparatively small) audience. The website UK Gameshows announced that The Mole beat The Crystal Maze to win its first reader poll to find the best UK gameshow of all time.

In 2003 won the the rights to the cult show Robot Wars (originally shown Friday nights on BBC Two), but due to a fallout between the show's producers and the Fighting Robot Association (FRA), the 9th series was the last.

Five has recently aired Make Me A Supermodel (two series to date) a show where contestants try to win a contract with Select Modelling Agency, the show became a four-times-a-week flagship show. In true digital channel style a spin-off entitled 'Make Me A Supermodel Extra' appeared on the Five Life channel.

In September 2006, Five aired a second series of Trust Me I'm A Holiday Rep, which shows celebrities working as holiday reps. Due to the Trust Me I'm A... popularity, Five aired another version of the show, based on a beauty salon called Trust Me I'm A Beauty Therapist.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Daytime

Since 2004, Five's daytime, especially morning, line-up has become extremely strong. After popular childrens block programming show Milkshake! finishes at 9am, The Wright Stuff airs, a morning debate show with celebrity guests on the panel talking and debating about everyday issues nationally and internationally. At 10:30am popular British talkshow host Trisha Goddard hosts her new show on Five, (after she left ITV in 2003). At 11:30am Five News airs, followed by a repeated episode of the previous night's episode of Home and Away at 12:00 pm. At 12:30 pm Five airs its surprise cult hit, early afternoon quiz show Brainteaser which is presented by Alex Lovell. Brainteaser has been on the air for four years, and has become one of Five's longest and most successful shows. In the afternoon Five airs two made for TV movies (mostly American imported) known as Five's Afternoon Movie section.

[edit] Lifestyle

Lifestyle programmes on the channel include the Ann Maurice-presented House Doctor, Diet Doctors, Extraordinary People, and also the Les Dennis quiz show In The Grid. The designers Colin McAllister & Justin Ryan also present numerous lifestyle programmes for Five.

[edit] Children and Teenagers

Five has become a front runner with children's TV, with flagship block programming show Milkshake! airing from 6am to 9am daily for pre-schoolers. Five then made the decision to air Shake! for an older audience (ages 8-12) which airs at the weekend after Milkshake. Shake! doesn't do as well as its sister block in the ratings due to the popular T4 on rival channel Channel 4 airing around the same time. However, in 2007 with the relaunch of CD:UK, and the The rumored acquiring of Toonami UK it is rumoured that Five will show more teenage shows to promote and relate with the CD:UK audience.

[edit] Drama and Comedy

Five most watched programmes are import drama, CSI, and also CSI: Miami, CSI: NY, Conviction, Criminal Minds, House, Big Love, Law and Order, NCIS, Grey's Anatomy, Prison Break and The Shield the most watched programmes. The second series of cancelled show Joey[2] will air in 2007, Two and a Half Men and Everybody Hates Chris also air on the channel. Five is increasingly becoming known for showing both top American comedies and also dramas.

In 2006 the channel eventually started to air home grown British dramas such as Tripping Over which, due to satisfactory ratings, has been given the green light for a second series in 2007. Five also airs the Perfect Day Trilogy, another British drama hit airing in 2006 that drew good viewing figures for the channel. British comedies such as Respectable and a second series of Swinging have also been shown.

2007 has started off to be a great year for five. The Barb UK ratings showed that five's double bill premiere of the new season of CSI pulled in 4.16 million viewers, one of five's highest recorded ratings.

In 2007, five started big advertising campaigns for its most popular drama's (mostly American, except for Tripping Over) It's Prison Break second season campaign was launched in January 2007, helping pull in more viewers. In late February of the same year, Five's Greys Anatomy second season advertising campaign started, hoping to pull in strong audience figures, to match five's highest rated show CSI.

In early 2007, five started airing the American CBS (now cancelled) comedy, Out of Practice weekdays at 6.30pm.

[edit] Sport

Late-night sports programming has been a feature of the channel since its launch, especially focusing on live coverage of major North American sports. The channel has covered Major League Baseball games, both regular season and playoffs since its first week on air, and also covers regular season National Football League and National Basketball Association games. Until 2004, it also covered the regular season and Stanley Cup playoffs of the National Hockey League; following the lost 2004-05 season, the broadcast rights passed to NASN. However, since 4 January 2006, Five is once again showing the NHL every Wednesday night. With the conclusion of Family Affairs, Five's MLB baseball coverage is the longest continuously run programme on the channel. Jonathan Gould and Josh Chetwynd are the co-hosts.

Five also shows a mix of European and international club football, notably coverage from the Netherlands Eredivisie, Portugal's SuperLiga, Primera División Argentina and Copa Libertadores from South America. Five has also regularly picked up the right to the international Confederations Cup competition, showing live matches and delayed coverage.

In 2005 Five secured the rights to show highlights of all of England's test and one-day cricket matches. This followed a period of much publicised success for the English cricket team and when the exclusive live rights to home England matches were controversially awarded to Sky Sports, Five was a surprise choice to pick up the highlights in light of Channel 4's excellent coverage and the BBC's previous interest. Prior to Channel 4, the BBC had held rights and Five were newcomers to cricket but the coverage has taken up where Channel 4 had left off in its coverage and has secured past cricketers such as Simon Hughes and Geoffrey Boycott to offer expert analysis on the day's play.

The channel has also covered motorsports, most notably Moto GP from 2000 to 2002 showing every race live before rights were snapped up by the BBC. For a brief time, Five showed professional wrestling in the form of the WCW Worldwide show between Summer 1999 and March 2001, when the company was purchased by World Wrestling Entertainment, and ceased to produce any more shows.

[edit] News

See Five News

[edit] Participation TV

Quiz Call broadcast daily on Five Life and Five US and Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings on the main Five channel. Quiz Call is a live studio based quiz show which encourages viewers to call in to answer an onscreen question in a bid to win cash prizes. To enter the competition, viewers can dial the telephone number displayed onscreen, SMS text entry or a free web route available on their website. To call and text Quiz Call viewers must be over the age of 18, and each call and text is charged whether or not a participant is connected to go live into the studio.

[edit] Current Programmes

[edit] Americas Finest

A strand of programing dedicated to American Police Dramas

• Criminal Minds
• CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
• CSI:NY
• CSI:Miami
• Killer Instinct
• Law & Order
• Law & Order: Criminal Intent
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
• NCIS
• The Shield

[edit] Aquired programing

• Big Love
• Grey's Anatomy
• Home and Away
• Prison Break

[edit] Comedy

• Everybody Hates Chris
• Out of Practice
• Respectable
• Swinging
• Two and a Half Men

[edit] Extrodenry Minds

• House,MD
• Shark

[edit] Sport

• Confederations Cup
• Major League Baseball on Five
• European & South American football
• National Hockey League

[edit] Home Grown

• Extraordinary People
• Nice House, Shame About the Garden
• Five News
• House Doctor
• Diet Doctors
• Milkshake!
• Tripping Over

[edit] Talk Shows/Gameshows

• Brainteaser
• In The Grid
• Trisha Goddard
• The Wright Stuff

[edit] Others

• Rumoured to have accquired Toonami UK

[edit] Upcoming Programmes

• Vanished
• The Nine
• CD:UK

[edit] See also

• List of British television channels

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Five Homepage at five.tv
• RTL.com
• A Burglar's Charter Understanding Channel 5, from Off The Telly, March 2002
• thisisfive.co.uk Channel 5 History and Idents
• idents.tv Channel 5 Idents