Five (TV)
TV channel|
name=five|
logosize=200px|
logofile=Five.svg|
logoalt=five logo|
launch=
30 March 1997|
share= 5.4% |
share as of= June '06 |
share source= [
1]| owner=
RTL Group |
former names=Channel 5 (1997-2002)|
web=
www.five.tv| terr serv 1=
UK analogue| terr chan 1=
Normally tuned to 5| terr serv 2=
Freeview|
terr chan 2=Channel 5|
sat serv 1=
Sky Digital|
sat chan 1=Channel 105|
cable serv 1=
NTL|
cable chan 1= Channel 105|
cable serv 2=
Telewest|
cable chan 2= Channel 105|
dummy parameter=|}}
five, formerly known as
Channel 5, is the
United Kingdom's fifth and final
national analogue terrestrial TV channel.
The
soap opera Family Affairs aired on the channel from its opening night. five however discontinued production of the soap in 2005, mainly due to low ratings. The final episode aired on
30 December that year.
The channel began with a reputation for lowest-common-denominator broadcasting, famously screening low-budget "erotic thrillers" on Friday and Saturday nights (prompting the comment by the channel's director of programmes,
Dawn Airey, that it was all about "films, football and fucking"), and concentrating its output on entertainment and lifestyle shows at the expense of factual programming.
In the
2000s the channel has shown some signs of adding more upmarket programming, such as the cult American series
', Law & Order, Alias, Lexx, Star Trek: Voyager, Stargate Atlantis, Prison Break, NCIS, Grey's Anatomy and House. As part of its attempt to move upmarket five won a bidding war with the other terrestrial TV channels for the rights to show the nascent Friends spin off, Joey. News media estimate five's winning bid at anywhere between £250,000 and £500,000 per show, either way in regions unheard of for a new TV show, and very rare even for established TV shows in the UK. The second episode (broadcast 13 February 2005) got an audience of 4.53 million, making it one of the channel's highest rated broadcasts ever.
five also shows many documentaries, some of which have been moderately successful, such as the Hidden Lives series. There was a period during 2003 and 2004 when it became known for World War II documentaries, many of which were repeats. This climaxed when Christmas Day 2004 was advertised as "World War II Day" on Five, but since then the channel has moderated the war documentaries on its schedules. In 2005 five acquired the rights to the annual Royal Institution Christmas Lectures.
In a bidding war for terrestrial rights to hit US animated comedy The Simpsons, five attempted to pick up rights to screen old and new episodes of the long-running cartoon, but were pipped to the deal by Channel 4. However five were the eventual winners in a bidding war with the broadcaster ITV to show the Australian soap opera Home and Away. five also picked up the rights for the ITV music show ', which it plans to launch in the summer of
2006.
In
2003, the channel controversially acquired the rights to the cult show
Robot Wars, for its upcoming 9th series (billed as "The Seventh Wars"), for so long a staple of Friday nights on
BBC Two. It was hoped that this would become another jewel in five's ever-brightening crown, but due to a fallout between the show's producers and the
Fighting Robot Association (FRA), the first series to be shown on five was the last, and also the last ever of Robot Wars. After the last ever episode was broadcast, five sold the whole series to children's cable/satellite channel
Jetix.
five announced on June 23rd 2006 that it would screen a new series of
Make Me a Supermodel. This time the show will feature male and female contestants fighting for a prise to sign with select modelling agency. Extra coverage shall be screened on five's new channel
five life. It's is unknown whether series 1 host
Rachel Hunter will present the new series.
Sport
Late-night sports programming, which has been a feature of the channel since launch, continues, 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; but 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.
Jonathon 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 and
Portugals
SuperLiga as well as
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.
|
Five's coverage of cricket |
In 2005 five secured the rights to show highlights of all of England's test and one-day matches. This followed a period of much publicised success for the
English cricket team and when the exclusive live rights to both home and away England matches were controversially awarded to
Sky Sports, five were a surprise quantity 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 innovative coverage and has secured past cricketers such as
Michael Atherton &
Geoffrey Boycott to offer expert analsis on the day's play.The channel has also covered motorsports and for a brief time,
professional wrestling in the form of the
WCW Worldwide show between 1998 and 2000.
News
|
five news was relaunched after the change of news provider. |
From
1 January 2005,
Sky News was awarded the contract to provide the news for five, replacing
ITN, which had provided the channel's news service from the channel's launch. The lead
newsreaders on launch were:
Helen Fospero,
Kate Gerbeau,
Barbara Serra and
Kirsty Young.
Priya Kaur-Jones joined after Barbara Serra returned to Sky News, and
John Suchet joined on a temporary basis while Kirsty Young is on maternity leave.
Lara Lewington has been the weather presenter since
January 2003The British frequency plan only allowed for four channels to be transmitted using analogue terrestrial transmitters, so it was very difficult to allocate frequencies for the new channel before its launch on
Easter Sunday 1997.
UHF channel 37 was allocated in many areas, which entailed a physical visit to every affected UK TV set to re-tune the video or satellite receiver so it wouldn't interfere with the station's broadcasts. Some homes also needed equipping with a new TV
aerial. However after launch in a large amount of areas the signal was visibly quite poor, this was due to using a different antenna band to other channels in the same area. This caused horizontal interference in many areas and gave it the nickname after launch of "the fuzzy channel".
Eventually the sheer volume of assumed affected homes became overwhelming for the company and so to reduce the backlog the company began a test transmission with a telephone number, and based their engineer visits solely on people who phoned that number to complain that they couldn't use their video equipment. In homes where a re-tuning would not remedy the problem, consumers were provided with a filter to completely block the Channel 5 signal.
Unlike the other four analogue
British television channels, the channel cannot be received via analogue terrestrial broadcasts in many areas, notably the south coast of England, where the signal would otherwise interfere with signals from television stations in
France. Many areas in Scotland are also outside of the five analogue broadcast area. The channel is available on all digital platforms (
Sky Digital satellite, and
Freeview digital terrestrial, and also most cable operators). Prior to the introduction of digital systems, it was provided
free-to-air on analogue
satellite for infill coverage, the only UK terrestrial channel to ever use this transmission system, and the first UK terrestrial on satellite.
|
Channel 5 generic logo, 1997-2002. Variants of this version were seen frequently prior to the launch, though the coloured bars remained in some form or another until 2002 |
|
One of the Channel 5 idents used from 1997-1999 |
|
One of the Channel 5 idents used from 1999-2000 |
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
Thames Television, was rejected outright and the government contemplated not awarding the license at all. The difficulty with the project lay in the frequency distribution plan which, in some regions, interfered with existing frequencies for video and satellite equipment. To achieve national coverage, large numbers of domestic video recorders (which output at a nearby frequency) had to be retuned at the new company's expense.
The project was revived in mid 1994 when
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.
On Sunday
March 30 1997, the Channel finally launched with a fantastic flair. To date, it has been the only terrestrial TV service to have launched with a pop group providing the launching song, a "reverse" cover of the 60's hit "5-4-3-2-1" as sung by the
Spice Girls.
five, with its mix of popular programmes acquired at significantly lower cost and original comedy fare, was an almost immediate success and in less than ten years has become firmly established as a leading UK national network.
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. C4 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.
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. It is speculated that this is simply a move away from the five name and that a relaunch as RTL could happen in the future.
British television has undergone a lot of change since five's launch.
Digital television has grown in popularity with the
free-to-air Digital Terrestrial Television service
Freeview proving especially popular, with set top box sales topping approximately 10 million. Digital Satellite is also popular with 8 million subscribers. All of the channel's rival terrestrial services have adopted a "multi-channel" approach to broadcasting to combat competition from digital only television channels, launching services like
ITV2,
BBC Three and
E4.
At present five has no sister channels, and rents out the digital spectrum gifted to it by the government to premium service
Top Up TV.
On
18 November 2005, it was announced that five had bought a stake in 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 [
2].
On 5th June 2006, BBC News announced that five is to launch two new digital TV channels this autumn.
five US will offer drama, films, sport, comedy and youth programming from across the Atlantic.
five life will provide pre-school shows under the
milkshake! banner as well as drama, films, soaps, popular factual and lifestyle shows aimed at women.Spin-offs from five's existing hits will also air on the new outlets, which will launch on Freeview. They are also expected to be on cable and satellite.
five has bought a stake in Top Up TV and the channels will use Freeview space that has been taken up by the pay-TV operator. But viewers will not have to have Top Up TV 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]
*
List of Five (TV) television programmes*
List of British television channels*
five.tv *
RTL.com*
thisisfive.co.uk Channel 5 history and idents
*
idents.tv Channel 5 idents
