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+--- Thread: Channel 5 at 25 (/showthread.php?tid=1044)
Channel 5 at 25 - Brekkie - 29-03-2022
It's 25 years on the 30th March since Channel 5 launched - but this looks set to be one of the least marked anniversaries in the history of television. It'll even pale into insignificance compared to the 10 week birthday GB News marked last year. I'd have thought they might at least commission something like the "Most Shocking Channel 5 moments" to mark the occassion, but nothing in the schedules and no sign of any news articles marking the occassion either.
Perhaps when you compare what C4 had to mark at 25 years and the impact they'd made on television and what C5 has delivered in comparison it is no surprise. I'm guessing other than 5 News their longest running format at the moment is probably Jeremy Vine, though of course that was as The Wright Stuff for many years so arguably a different show. Even so though, the Jeremy Vine incarnation may still be up there. I do think though despite it's obvious phases of benefit shows and rehashing shows under new names, and whether or not they should or should not have been showing Big Brother, that as the channel stands at the moment they do have alot to be proud of about their present day offerings, rather than having to gloat about previous glories. Just a shame it looks like it'll go by pretty much unmentioned, though hopefully 5 News at least will mark it tomorrow.
And of course it also means they can't do the inevitable "25" adaptations to their idents if they're not really doing anything.
Channel 5 at 25 - TVNerd - 29-03-2022
The Gadget Show is the next longest running Channel 5 show I believe, having started in June 2004.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they mention Channel 5’s anniversary in tomorrow’s show, most likely as the quiz question used as an “after the break” tease similar to Countdown, as they are recorded close enough to transmission to know when episodes are being aired, but I doubt it.
Channel 5 at 25 - johnnyboy - 29-03-2022
Channel 5 has matured very well in the last few years.
Although I am very partial to shows like Bargain Brits, the increasingly middle-aged bloke in me likes their train docs, history docs, celeb-on-tour docs, and so on. Yes, they won't win any awards but I find myself enjoying this version of the channel much more than the brasher incarnation back in 1997.
Channel 5 at 25 - Spencer - 29-03-2022
I have to say that I find myself watching it more now than I ever have.
Although that might be because I live in Yorkshire, and half of the programmes are about here. :lol:
Channel 5 at 25 - Blubatt - 29-03-2022
Channel 5 is only 10 days older than me. We could have gone to school together. I do agree with johnnyboy, the channel has gotten a lot better in recent years. I feel like the quality of stuff they show is better than it was even a couple of years ago.
Channel 5 at 25 - Inspector Sands - 29-03-2022
I'm finding I'm watching it a lot more these days too, but although they've got some great documentaries - the Rob Bell and Ben Fogle ones in particular, they've also sole very low-rent ones too. The fixed rig series about the GPs surgery in particular is so very dull.
Last night it was some caravan park. Fly on the wall is a great genre but it needs funny or dramatic things.
Channel 5 at 25 - Steve Williams - 29-03-2022
Brekkie post_id=75466 time= user_id=976 Wrote:It's 25 years on the 30th March since Channel 5 launched - but this looks set to be one of the least marked anniversaries in the history of television. It'll even pale into insignificance compared to the 10 week birthday GB News marked last year. I'd have thought they might at least commission something like the "Most Shocking Channel 5 moments" to mark the occassion, but nothing in the schedules and no sign of any news articles marking the occassion either.
Channel Four marked their fifteenth and 25th anniversaries with extended seasons of archive programmes and documentaries, but their twentieth anniversary coincided with a bit of a dodgy period for the channel, so the only mention of it was by Richard Whiteley on Countdown.
As I've mentioned before, I watched quite a bit of Channel 5 in its early days, we could get a fairly watchable picture through the static. I watched Jack Docherty every night because I thought it was a good thing to have and I liked the idea of it, but I got bored of it after six months, probably about five months after Jack did. And it was quite an interesting channel, because a lot of it was clearly low budget and quite homely and, not having multichannel, that was a bit of a novelty, the output looked cheaper even compared to the depths of daytime on the other channels.
Then of course it plunged downmarket, but then circa 2002 it hiked back upmarket when Kevin Lygo took over, where the US dramas were at their peak with CSI and Law and Order and all their spin-offs doing good business for them. I remember Jeff Ford, their head of acquisitions, regularly being profiled in Media Guardian and Broadcast and the Radio Times as having the Midas touch and being one of the most important people in TV. I remember he said they had a bit of a clear run with their acquisitions as BBC1 and ITV had pretty much given up on them in primetime and Channel Four were after more unusual stuff, like Six Feet Under, rather than the police procedurals they were going for. They really worked for them, they were a genre C5 could really make their own.
Under Lygo they also signed up a lot of big names like Carol Smillie, Clive Anderson and the like, which illustrated they were going places. But the shows never really managed to get above the level of "good enough to be on one of the proper channels". The Clive Anderson series was a case in point, it was a Room 101-style panel show called God Almighty where a different guest every week made various commandments, and it was amusing enough, but BBC2 and C4 were churning out similiar formats at a rate of knots, so they never really stood out. And they got into comedy in the mid-noughties as well with some half-decent sitcoms like Suburban Shootout and Respectable, but none of those were distinctive enough to really stand out and they gave up on scripted comedy after a few, which was a shame. And then of course when Richard Desmond bought it, it plunged downmarket again.
I don't watch Channel Five all that much, we've watched a few of the dramas, but again, none of those have to my mind ever really progressed above the level of "good enough to be on one of the proper channels". US dramas alone, they never seem to have really found a genre they can really make their own, but clearly they do have a loyal audience and I think it's probably a hugely valuable channel for people with Freeview who aren't interested in streaming platforms, though I don't know how sustainable that audience is in the long run.
Channel 5 at 25 - Steve in Pudsey - 29-03-2022
It's probably quite difficult to celebrate as an anniversary, I don't think you could really do it without referring to the pre-launch hype and how different the C5 of today is compared to what was promised in the barker
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIsE7CUw5VY
Channel 5 at 25 - Brekkie - 29-03-2022
I think there are things of merit in each era of the channel but the trouble is when they decided to do something they double down on it and hence you have the Arts Docu phase, the CSI5 stage, the Wannabee MTV stage, the Yorkshire... stage etc.
It is a bit more balanced at the moment but they need to ensure their additional, long overdue, investment in scripted programming, doesn't end up in numerous clones of the same thing - though that's not a problem unique to C5.
Channel 5 at 25 - Larry the Loafer - 29-03-2022
I think it was Dead Ringers who said, back in 2007, "we're celebrating 20 years of Channel 5. Or, in other words, 20 years of softcore porn and documentaries about Hitler."
Channel 5 at 25 - johnnyboy - 29-03-2022
Inspector Sands post_id=75507 time= user_id=1003 Wrote:I'm finding I'm watching it a lot more these days too, but although they've got some great documentaries - the Rob Bell and Ben Fogle ones in particular, they've also sole very low-rent ones too. The fixed rig series about the GPs surgery in particular is so very dull.
Last night it was some caravan park. Fly on the wall is a great genre but it needs funny or dramatic things.
Yeah - I saw that and loved it. For me, the pinnacle of fly-on-the-wall docs by C5 is the absolutely brilliant Bargain Loving Brits in the Sun (no sarcasm at all). The people in it are very likeable, it's very well edited, its pacing is great, and John Thompson's voiceover is superb.
Channel 5 at 25 - gottago - 29-03-2022
I can kind of understand why they're not bothering with marking it. They've had that many different and inconsistent eras, pretty much completely changing their target audience each time. I remember everything they did for the 10th anniversary (especially that random one off 90 minute panel show) rating horribly; there just isn't that nostalgia for the channel's past. It's only the last few years that the channel has found constant rating and award success and reached record profits so can see why they'd rather focus on the present than celebrate a not particularly memorable past.
Channel 5 at 25 - XIII - 29-03-2022
I think Channel 5 under Ben Frow have found its purpose and people may sneer at their programmes but it's clear that they know their audience and also on a budget that a lot less than Channel 4 and BBC Two.
Channel 5 at 25 - Steve Williams - 30-03-2022
gottago post_id=75565 time= user_id=900 Wrote:I can kind of understand why they're not bothering with marking it. They've had that many different and inconsistent eras, pretty much completely changing their target audience each time. I remember everything they did for the 10th anniversary (especially that random one off 90 minute panel show) rating horribly; there just isn't that nostalgia for the channel's past. It's only the last few years that the channel has found constant rating and award success and reached record profits so can see why they'd rather focus on the present than celebrate a not particularly memorable past.
Also, not that many channels actually bother to mark anniversaries on air, really - BBC1 don't do it on 2nd November and while ITV did quite a bit for their fiftieth in 2005, they've not done much for any anniversary since. Audiences watch programmes, not channels, so it's a bit pointless trying to reflect absolutely everything a channel has done over 25 years because the output is so diverse.
Channel 5 at 25 - soupie - 30-03-2022
C5 has done well to move away from its past- Dawn Airey’s “three Fs”, Naked Jungle, over-reliance on Big Brother- so why reflect on it?