Channel 5 (UK)

Channel 5 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel launched in 1997. It is the fifth national terrestrial channel in the United Kingdom and is owned by Channel 5 Broadcasting Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of American media conglomerate Paramount Global, which is grouped under Paramount Networks UK & Australia division.

During ownership by the RTL Group, it was branded as Five between 16 September 2002 and 13 February 2011. Richard Desmond purchased the channel from RTL on 23 July 2010, announcing plans to invest more money in programming and return to the name Channel 5 with immediate effect, and it was relaunched on 14 February 2011. On 1 May 2014 the channel was acquired by Viacom (now Paramount Global) for £450 million (US$759 million).

Channel 5 is a general entertainment channel that shows both internally commissioned programmes such as '' Our Yorkshire Farm'', '' The Gadget Show'', ''The Hotel Inspector'', and ''Can't Pay? We'll Take It Away!'' and foreign programmes. The channel has been very successful with imports from the United States in particular, including the '' CSI'' franchise, the '' NCIS'' franchise, the first three series in the '' Law & Order'' franchise, '' Power Rangers'', ''The Mentalist'', '' Body of Proof'', '' Once Upon a Time'', ''Dallas'', '' Under the Dome'' and sitcom '' Friends'' (also on Comedy Central UK).

History

Pre-launch

Channel 5 Broadcasting Limited was licensed by the UK's then-independent statutory regulator the Independent Television Commission (ITC) in 1995 after a bidding process that started in 1993 and lasted throughout 1994. The initial round of bidders, which included a network of Citytv stations planned by Thames Television and the Italian politician and media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi (who founded Mediaset, which owns Canale 5 and formerly owned La Cinq, which ceased operations in 1992; he retired his offer a few months later), was rejected outright and the ITC 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 videocassette 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 ITC 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 retuning and greater signal coverage. Lord Hollick, then chief executive of Meridian Broadcasting (later United News & Media, and UBM) took up the project as lead investor as UK law prohibited Time Warner from owning more than 25%. Pearson Television, who by now owned original licence bidders Thames Television, also came on board. When McGrath left to become President of Paramount, Time Warner dropped out of the project and was replaced by the Compagnie Luxembourgeoise de Télédiffusion (CLT, known in the UK for Radio Luxembourg under CLT's former name of the Compagnie Luxembourgeoise de Radiodiffusion, CLR). Other bidders for the licence included UKTV (led by Canwest and Select TV, who bid £36m for the licence), New Century Television (owned by BSkyB and Granada, who bid £2m), Virgin TV (backed by Virgin Communications) and Associated Newspapers (who bid £22m, the same as Channel 5 Broadcasting who won the licence).

Wolf Olins and Saatchi & Saatchi were the main companies behind the pre-launch advertising campaign: "Give Me 5". The channel would be both modern and mainstream. A logo (a numeric "5" within a circle) and visual motif (a "candy stripe" bar of colours, reminiscent of TV test cards) were used, and an attempt was made to establish a collection of Channel 5 faces; through the spring of 1997, billboards of Jack Docherty were displayed, along with other unknown characters.

A series of pre-launch screens were displayed on the frequencies Channel 5 would begin broadcasting on in the months before launch as well, including a trailer for the channel and information screens. After re-tuning, around 65% of the population's televisions could view the channel on launch night.

The launch

The channel's launch on 30 March 1997, Easter Sunday, at featured the Spice Girls singing a re-written version of Manfred Mann's hit "5-4-3-2-1" as "1-2-3-4-5". Presenters Tim Vine and Julia Bradbury introduced the nation to the UK's fifth (sixth including S4C) terrestrial channel with half-an-hour of previews.

The rest of the Channel 5 launch night schedule, along with the official viewing figures, was as follows:

Overall, an estimated 2,490,000 tuned in to see Britain's fifth free channel launch, a figure higher than that achieved by launch of Channel 4, fourteen and a half years earlier.

The first advert shown on was Chanel No. 5 perfume.

Re-brand as Five (2002)

On 16 September 2002, Channel 5 re-branded to Five, in a multimillion-pound project directed by Trevor Beattie. The channel's director of marketing at the time, David Pullen, said:

On 27 February 2004, it was reported that Five and Channel 4 were discussing a possible merger. Channel 4 and Five announced in November of that year that merger plans were being called off. Early in 2009, rumours started re-surfacing about Five, Channel 4 and ITV conducting a three-way merger.

Pearson Television and CLT (which by that time merged with the television businesses of Bertelsmann's UFA to form CLT-UFA) later merged, becoming RTL Group which became part of Bertelsmann and therefore owned the channel, after buying UBM's 35.4% stake for £247.6 million on 20 July 2005. The acquisition was approved on 26 August 2005. After Holleck became involved, he and McGrath brought on board Greg Dyke (later Director-General of the BBC) as interim CEO during the application and launch phase of the project.

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.

Following this, Five launched two new digital TV channels in autumn 2006 on Freeview, Sky and Virgin Media:

* 5 STAR launched as Five Life on 15 October 2006, providing dramas, films, soap operas and popular factual and lifestyle shows. The channel previously aired pre-school shows under the ''Milkshake!'' banner. It was renamed Fiver in 2008, 5* in 2011 and eventually its current name in 2016.
* 5 USA launched as Five US on 16 October 2006, offering drama, films, sport, comedy and youth programming from the USA. It was renamed Five USA in 2009 and 5 USA in 2011.

Desmond takeover (2011)

Five was taken over by Richard Desmond's publishing group Northern & Shell on 23 July 2010 for £103.5 million. Desmond pledged to top up the broadcaster's total budget to about £1.5bn over the next five years, including new investment of £50m to £100m a year to boost programming and the equivalent of £20m promoting the channel and its shows in a marketing campaign in Northern & Shell publications.
The takeover was partly motivated by the opportunities for cross-promotion of Five from Desmond's newspapers ('' Daily Express'' and '' Daily Star'') and magazines (including '' OK!''). One commentator warned that "readers will be bombarded with references to Five. The opportunity for cross-promotion between his publications and TV channel are enormous."

Upon completing his takeover of Five on 23 July 2010, Richard Desmond remarked; "I prefer Channel 5 to Five, but... we haven't met with the team yet to discuss these sorts of details". The day after, Desmond's '' Daily Express'' newspaper noted that the channel's name was to change: "From today the rather vague 'Five' (Five what? Days of the week? Fingers?) reverts to the much more informative Channel 5". On 11 August 2010, Desmond confirmed the restoration of the original name used from 1997 to 2002. The restoration was revealed onscreen on 14 February 2011.

The relaunch also saw investment in a range of new programming with the debut of the (now-cancelled) nightly entertainment show ''OK! TV''.Richard Desmond's Channel 5 to air reality show set in lesbian bar
guardian.co.uk, 11 February 2011Illusion show heads up Channel 5 season
Digital Spy, 11 February 2011 Audience figures for the relaunch were boosted with increased viewing figures for the main ''5 News'' bulletins and improved figures for ''OK! TV'' in the 6.30 p.m. slot over its predecessor ''Live from Studio Five''. On 18 August 2011, Channel 5 relaunched '' Big Brother'', starting with ''Celebrity Big Brother 8'' and followed by '' Big Brother 12'', having bought the rights to air the programme following its cancellation by Channel 4 in April 2011. The deal was worth a reported £200 million. The show helped the channel's viewing figures and audience share to rise slightly year-on-year, from 4.4% to 4.5%, in 2012. It was only achieved by Channel 5 and BBC One later in 2012; all other terrestrial broadcasters fell in comparison.

In 2013, Ben Frow, the channel's Director of Programming, revealed that the station would be moving away from broadcasting just American imports, by introducing shows from other countries such as Canada, Ireland and Australia to the schedules. The station has since begun screening Australian prison drama '' Wentworth Prison'' and Irish gangland series '' Love/Hate''.

Sale to Viacom (2014)

In January 2014, it was reported that Richard Desmond was looking at selling Channel 5 for up to £700 million. BT, ITV, Channel 4, NBCUniversal, Endemol, Time Warner, Viacom, Scripps Network Interactive, Saban Capital Group, and a joint bid of BSkyB and Discovery Communications were all bidders reportedly interested in acquiring Channel 5.

On 1 May 2014, Desmond agreed to sell Channel 5 to Viacom for £450 million (US$759 million). The deal was approved on 10 September 2014 and at the same time it was announced that it was to co-commission programmes with its pay channels such as Nickelodeon and MTV. On 15 April 2015, Channel 5 launched a British version of the American cable channel Spike (which would become rebranded as 5Spike, before taking on the Paramount Network name on Freeview channel 32). On 1 August 2015, Channel 5's five advertising regions: London, South/Central England and Wales, Northern England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland were closed with Viacom considering them financially unviable. The closure of the advertising regions allowed Channel 5 HD for Sky HD viewers to swap with the standard-definition version of Channel 5 on the EPG.

Under Viacom, the channel planned to increase its original programming output, increasing its budget by 10%. On 11 February 2016, Channel 5 also unveiled an overhauled brand, meant to reflect a new remit of "Spirited TV with an Emotional Heart".

In December 2019, Viacom re-merged with CBS Corporation, forming ViacomCBS and making Channel 5 a sister to CBS in the United States and Network 10 in Australia. Since January 2020, the channels operate under the ViacomCBS Networks UK & Australia subsidiary (with the British CBS channels and Horror being part of a joint-venture with AMC). Channel 5 received Channel of the Year honours from the Royal Television Society and Broadcast Awards in 2020, with judges for both recognising the network's expansion under ViacomCBS.

In August 2021, ViacomCBS Networks International agreed a deal with Comcast Corporation's Sky Group to launch the Paramount+ streaming service in various European markets via Sky's set-top boxes and devices. As there could have been the situation where a premium pay streaming service with the Paramount name was operating in a marketplace where there was a free-to-air Paramount television channel offering emergency service reality TV shows, wrestling and action B-movies, it was decided to rename the channel (which had previously merged with 5Spike) as 5Action, with the change due to take place on 19 January 2022. The rebrand, to realign Freeview channel 32 with that of its parent channel once again, was announced in December 2021, around the same time that it was announced that Channel 5 had joined the organisation responsible for Freeview and Freesat, Digital UK, becoming the last of the UK's major Public Service Broadcasters to join the body.

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, but the ITC identified that UHF channels 35 and 37 could provide coverage of around 70% of the UK population. These channels were used by many domestic video recorders for RF connection to television sets. Before the channel could launch, the broadcaster had to provide over-the-phone instructions or visit any home that complained to either retune the video recorder or fit a filter to completely block the Channel 5 signal.

For many transmitters, channels 35 and 37 were 'out of group', which meant that the roof-top receiving aerials were not designed to cover Channel 5's broadcast channels. Many people either could not receive the channel at all, or required a new aerial. The broadcaster progressively added to the transmitters to improve the analogue terrestrial coverage since that time. From 23 April 1997, the channel was also provided on the analogue Astra satellite service, which enabled people outside the terrestrial reception areas to receive it via a dish.

Unlike the other four analogue British television channels, the channel could not 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 of North East England, especially around the major Tyne & Wear conurbation; many areas in Scotland; most of Wales, most of Northern Ireland and parts of Cumbria. The channel is available on all digital platforms (Freesat, Sky satellite, IPTV and Freeview digital terrestrial, and also most cable operators). On 5 November 2008, the channel launched on digital satellite service Freesat, on the Astra 28.2°E satellites.

It was the first analogue channel in the UK to use a permanent digital on-screen graphic, though this was removed in September 2002 – however, the children's programming strands kept the DOG. In October 2007, the channel's logo returned to the screen.

Channel 5 is available in Switzerland on Swisscom TV and Cablecom.

On 30 September 2009, the channel temporarily ceased broadcasting on Freeview from around 9:30am until midday. This was due to changes to the Freeview platform, which meant moving Channel 5 from a commercial multiplex to a public service broadcasting multiplex to increase the coverage of the channel from around 70% to 99% across the country on relay transmitters which only carried the three PSB multiplexes but did not carry the three commercial multiplexes.

On 20 September 2019 it was announced that Channel 5 had joined BritBox, a digital video subscription service created by the BBC
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