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5 (British TV channel)
5 (formerly known as Channel 5 and Five) is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel 5 Broadcasting Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Paramount Skydance's UK and Australia division. It was launched in 30 March 1997 to provide a fifth national terrestrial channel in the United Kingdom.
Channel 5 was renamed Five, from 16 September 2002 until 13 February 2011. Most of this was under the RTL Group's ownership with Richard Desmond purchasing the channel on 23 July 2010 and reverting the name change. On 1 May 2014, the channel was acquired by Viacom (now Paramount Global) for £450 million (US$759 million). Channel 5 was rebranded as 5 on 12 March 2025 along with its streaming service.
It is a general entertainment channel that shows internally commissioned programmes such as The Drowning, All Creatures Great and Small and Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Wild. The channel has also relied on imports from the United States, 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.
Wolff 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, and a month after launch, the channel launched on satellite to provide coverage to the rest of the UK.
The channel's launch on 30 March 1997 (Easter Sunday) at 6 p.m. After a brief voice over by continuity presenter David Vickery, the first broadcast was the Spice Girls singing a cover version of Manfred Mann's hit "5-4-3-2-1" as "1-2-3-4-5", for which they were reportedly paid around £500,000. Presenters Tim Vine and Julia Bradbury were the first people to introduce the nation to the UK's fifth 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 the launch of Channel 4, fourteen and a half years earlier.
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5 (British TV channel)
5 (formerly known as Channel 5 and Five) is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel 5 Broadcasting Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Paramount Skydance's UK and Australia division. It was launched in 30 March 1997 to provide a fifth national terrestrial channel in the United Kingdom.
Channel 5 was renamed Five, from 16 September 2002 until 13 February 2011. Most of this was under the RTL Group's ownership with Richard Desmond purchasing the channel on 23 July 2010 and reverting the name change. On 1 May 2014, the channel was acquired by Viacom (now Paramount Global) for £450 million (US$759 million). Channel 5 was rebranded as 5 on 12 March 2025 along with its streaming service.
It is a general entertainment channel that shows internally commissioned programmes such as The Drowning, All Creatures Great and Small and Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Wild. The channel has also relied on imports from the United States, 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.
Wolff 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, and a month after launch, the channel launched on satellite to provide coverage to the rest of the UK.
The channel's launch on 30 March 1997 (Easter Sunday) at 6 p.m. After a brief voice over by continuity presenter David Vickery, the first broadcast was the Spice Girls singing a cover version of Manfred Mann's hit "5-4-3-2-1" as "1-2-3-4-5", for which they were reportedly paid around £500,000. Presenters Tim Vine and Julia Bradbury were the first people to introduce the nation to the UK's fifth 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 the launch of Channel 4, fourteen and a half years earlier.
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