5Star

5Star (stylized as 5STAR) is a British free-to-air television channel owned by Channel 5 Broadcasting Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Paramount Skydance Corporation, which is grouped under Paramount Networks UK & Australia division. It originally launched as the female-orientated Five Life on 15 October 2006, and was relaunched as Fiver on 28 April 2008 with a revised version of the same concept. The channel was later re-branded as 5* on 7 March 2011, and later, it was re-branded as its current name on 11 February 2016. The network focuses on documentaries, comedy and drama, with original content such as Rich Kids Go Skint and Young, Dumb & Banged Up in the Sun, along with some American and Australian imports.

Five Life was intended to be a female-oriented channel emphasising lifestyle programming. Channel 5 announced that programming on launch would include The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Love My Way, Windfall, Angela's Eyes, and a weekday double-bill of the chat show Trisha Goddard. On 16 October 2006, a day following the channel's launch, Australian soap opera Home and Away began airing from episode 4212 (Season 19, Episode 112). New episodes were shown Monday to Friday in a 'First Look' screening with episodes following the Channel 5 airing. Repeats of popular female-skewing dramas, both nationally and internationally produced, were soon acquired. A time-shift version was launched following the channel's launch in summer 2007.

On 28 April 2008, Five Life was relaunched as Fiver, with a new branding strategy aimed at a younger audience. The rebranding introduced a "younger, faster, louder" concept to compete with Sky Living. The channel adopted a unique on-air presentation featuring a "cursor" motif, which typed out words related to programs and current events.

In 2011, the channel was re-launched as 5Star (stylized as 5★ or 5*, pronounced "Five Star"). The new brand focused on a "fun-loving" concept, with initial acquisitions including $#*! My Dad Says, Better with You and Parenthood. On 11 April 2011, 5Star reduced its broadcast hours to 13:00 to 00:00, replacing the hours withdrawn with more teleshopping.^{[citation needed]} When some of these new programmes failed to impact the channel's ratings, several were dropped and replaced by new locally-produced and acquired programming. These included the American series 8 Simple Rules, 10 Things I Hate About You, Alphas and The Lying Game.

In 2012, in consort with C5's acquisition of the series, 5Star began airing the Big Brother companion show Big Brother: Live from the House, which aired 60 minutes of live feed following every eviction show. In 2013, after Live from the House set ratings records for the channel, the programme was expanded to two hours nightly. However, ratings were at a share below that of the channel's average, with just 70,000 watching the first live feeds. Subsequently, the live feeds were shut down and the spin-off show last aired in June 2013. Also in 2013, American Idol moved to 5Star from ITV2. Continuing the channel's venture into reality based programming, Tallafornia was acquired from Ireland's TV3 and this was soon joined by Bar Rescue, World's Worst Tenants and Top 20 Funniest in 2014.

The 5Star schedule included a variety of programming, including the aforementioned reality series, as well as the first-run rights to Helix, the second-run rights to American series Falling Skies, Under the Dome and The Walking Dead, and Australian soap operas Home & Away and Neighbours. Popular documentary series shared with C5 air throughout the daytime and primetime hours, such as The Gadget Show.

The time-shift version of the channel was shut down on 3 February 2014 to make way for Channel 5 +24. The channel returned later, launching on Freesat on 16 September 2014 and Sky in the UK and Ireland on 4 November 2014, replacing BET +1 on the platform. The addition of the channel in Ireland was an error; thus, it was removed on 6 November 2014.

On 11 February 2016, as part of an overall re-branding of Channel 5's networks following their acquisition by Viacom, the channel was re-branded as 5Star.