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How's Channel 5 doing these days?

Started by Bazooka, April 10, 2019, 02:42:59 AM

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Bazooka

Not living in the UK I don't press the 5 button on my controller, how is Channel 5 doing these days? I could check the 5iplayer or radio times, but that would be mad.

I still remember the day the Channel 5 trailer launched so to speak, when you pressed the 5 button on your controller. What a move to put softcore porn on a Friday and Saturday from launch, viewing figures must have been through the roof.

Alberon

It's dominated by those tabloid-headline style documentaries like "Can't pay? We'll take it away" and "She's 82 and he's a ground source heat pump". They're the sort that has to have a lengthy recap after each commercial break as there isn't much material and they have little faith in their viewers attention spans.

There's also some staggeringly dull TV movies on in the afternoon. Mrs Alberon has occasionally watched them as sort of a beige MST3K.

Phil_A

It's been pretty much worthless since Richard Desmond bought it and turned it into Daily Mail TV. Even though he flogged it to Viacom ages ago, they've kept a similar roster of BLADDY BENEFIT SCROUNGERS shows, so it seems like the damage is permanent.

Quote from: Phil_A on April 10, 2019, 09:50:01 AM
It's been pretty much worthless since Richard Desmond bought it and turned it into Daily Mail TV. Even though he flogged it to Viacom ages ago, they've kept a similar roster of BLADDY BENEFIT SCROUNGERS shows, so it seems like the damage is permanent.

Indeed.  The decision to scrap Big Brother came just after the Viacom deal, as supposedly Channel 5 were going for more upmarket programming.  Turns out that this was bollocks and it was just because Big Brother's a relic of the past that didn't make money anymore.

petril

Quote from: Alberon on April 10, 2019, 09:08:00 AM
There's also some staggeringly dull TV movies on in the afternoon. Mrs Alberon has occasionally watched them as sort of a beige MST3K.

a slight change from doing them in prime time every night. slight.

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: Phil_A on April 10, 2019, 09:50:01 AM
It's been pretty much worthless since Richard Desmond bought it and turned it into Daily Mail TV. Even though he flogged it to Viacom ages ago, they've kept a similar roster of BLADDY BENEFIT SCROUNGERS shows, so it seems like the damage is permanent.

I'm not saying it got worse with Desmond at the helm, but it's never not been shite has it? I think the only thing I watched on it was World's Wildest Police Videos with yer man Sheriff John Bunnell.

I grew up in a commuter town that used a relay for TV and they never added Channel 5 to the repeater, so always felt I was missing out. Then I finally got freeview in the early 2000's and found it was shite.

imitationleather

They never bettered Touch the Truck.

gilbertharding

Quote from: Adam FaithChannel 5 is all shit, isn't it? Christ, the crap they put on there. It's a waste of space. NNngggggg.....

Lots of bargain-basement crap with "Benefits" in the title. Plus Home and Away, which amazingly still exists.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

The other main channels to slide, and in so doing almost gives the impression C5 has got better.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Last time I tuned in, it seemed to be chock a block with every variety of CSI and Law & Order.

I recall they showed Twin Peaks around the time that I was really getting into the work of David Lynch and similar stuff. Unfortunately the signal was so bad that I didn't manage to watch it all. Did they ever sort out the analogue transmission, or did it remain a fuzzy mess until the end?

Phil_A

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on April 10, 2019, 03:44:27 PM
I'm not saying it got worse with Desmond at the helm, but it's never not been shite has it? I think the only thing I watched on it was World's Wildest Police Videos with yer man Sheriff John Bunnell.

I grew up in a commuter town that used a relay for TV and they never added Channel 5 to the repeater, so always felt I was missing out. Then I finally got freeview in the early 2000's and found it was shite.

I wouldn't make any claims for it being great TV, but it used to be enjoyably trashy in an unpretentious sort of way. The kind of channel that would without any irony put on a late night porn review show called "European Blue Review". They went through a period of showing loads of weird old sixties/seventies exploitation films and even had a Russ Meyer season once.

Small Man Big Horse

They tried to make a couple of comedy shows which weren't too bad (I have a fondness for Respectable, and I hear Swinging had it's moments) and of course there was The Jack Docherty Show, but the majority of their output has been embarrassing.

Ja'moke

They got rid of Big Brother, which was their only consistent ratings winner (even if the ratings had dropped significantly from its C4 days), because Ben Frow wanted to change the "image" of Channel 5. They replaced it with a British reboot of The Bachelor which absolutely tanked.

St_Eddie

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on April 10, 2019, 05:53:03 PM
I recall they showed Twin Peaks around the time that I was really getting into the work of David Lynch and similar stuff...

...did it remain a fuzzy mess until the end?

Nah, things improved in Season 3.

Snarf snarf.


Replies From View

Not sure about Channel 5 but I hear that Channel 5 + 1 is doing swimmingly.

If it goes much better I suspect they will end up axing Channel 5 and just keeping the + 1 version.

DrGreggles

No World's Wildest Police Chases? No point!


pigamus

What was the original point of it? Why was it felt necessary?

Emma Raducanu

Well there's channel 5, 5+1, 5Star, 5USA, 5Spike and 5Select so obviously there's so much good televison, they've had to expand to accommodate it all.

Why is televison expanding and not getting smaller? Channel 4 have a dozen channels too, 4 4+1, E4, More4, 47, Film4, 4Music. Usually all just repeating the same stuff.

pigamus

Oh no, sorry, I meant Channel 5 itself rather than the +1 channel. I just wondered how and why it originally came into being in the first place.

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: pigamus on April 10, 2019, 09:56:27 PM
Oh no, sorry, I meant Channel 5 itself rather than the +1 channel. I just wondered how and why it originally came into being in the first place.

Because somebody at the ITC realised that there was space for an extra channel (and thus licence money to be had) if it got creative and got the people buying the licence to swallow the cost of moving the standard frequencies vcr's outputted on out of the way.

Alberon

By the time it finally launched though Sky and cable were up and running and the whole thing looked about ten years too late.

Which it was.

Enzo

[tag]Adam Faith returns from the dead[/tag]

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

It had something to do with Janet Street Porter, didn't it?

petril

The build up, slides and test transmissions were nice though

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: Alberon on April 10, 2019, 10:45:34 PM
By the time it finally launched though Sky and cable were up and running and the whole thing looked about ten years too late.

Which it was.

It was free and aimed at people not interested in subscription telly. So that gave them 5 years until onDigital went bump and freeview got invented.

Rolf Lundgren

Quote from: Ja'moke on April 10, 2019, 07:05:26 PM
They got rid of Big Brother, which was their only consistent ratings winner (even if the ratings had dropped significantly from its C4 days), because Ben Frow wanted to change the "image" of Channel 5. They replaced it with a British reboot of The Bachelor which absolutely tanked.

It was great though. The Bachelor UK that is. They spammed it out every weeknight for a fortnight and never quite at the same time but it was glorious to watch.

Rev+

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on April 10, 2019, 05:53:03 PM
I recall they showed Twin Peaks around the time that I was really getting into the work of David Lynch and similar stuff.

They bunged that on right when they started, but I think they only ran the first series.  With the videos being out of print at that point it'd have been a world of fun if you were new to the thing.

Other C5 memories:

(Edited if you caught this in the last 10 minutes, turns out my memory's fucked).  They showed Natural Born Killers at a time in which it was in limbo, which caused a huge buzz.  Actual appointment TV as there was no guarantee you'd ever get the chance to see the film again.

They did the UK version of the Mole, which was ace, and was shitcanned after two series, which makes them dicks.  I'm pretty sure the last episode of the second series was the last time I ever watched Channel 5 because you don't, do you?

In summary:  I have nothing to contribute to this thread.

Bazooka

Great to hear such fondness. They also show the Worlds Strongest Man.