Five 10th Birthday – From Sunset Beach To Grey’s Anatomy

At the end of this month the fifth terrestrial channel will have been broadcasting for 10 years. During that time the landscape of British television has changed drastically.

Sky Digital now dominates the pay-tv market, ITV Digital launched and collapsed, Ofcom replaced ITC and reality television is overtaking TV schedules around the world.

During its early years, Channel 5 (as it was called) relied on the three Fs: football, films and f… well take a guess.

Early ratings success came with coverage of England’s World Cup ’98 qualifier with Poland, which attracted 3.98 million viewers.

The terrestrial premiere of the Keanu Reeves blockbuster Speed also did well, with an audience of 3.66 million.

Sunset Beach with its outrageous and tacky plots was one of the first genuine hits. Despite being a daytime soap opera, it attracted viewing figures of over one million until its US cancellation forced it off British screens.

Another soap opera, Family Affairs, was the channel’s attempt to have a guaranteed ratings banker in the mode of Coronation Street, Eastenders or Brookside. Initially the soap successfully pulled in audiences of around 1.5 million, but eventually strong competition from C4’s Hollyoaks, broadcast in the same 6.30pm Monday to Friday slot, saw the programme receive the axe in December 2005.

Recent years have seen the channel acquire several top quality US imports such as CSI and its spinoffs, as well as House, Prison Break and Grey’s Anatomy.

CSI has proved to be the most successful of these imports, regularly attracting audiences of around three million.

On 16 September 2002, Channel 5 rebranded as Five, claiming that this would “refresh the channel’s on-screen identity.”

Ratings for the channel grew steadily in its first few years and it was the only terrestrial channel to increase its viewing share during the late 1990s and early 2000s. However, since 2004, Five, like the other terrestrial channels, has lost viewing share.

Although Five could only reach 36.4% of the population during its first week of broadcast, the channel has seen weekly reach grow thanks to the rise in digital television in the UK (reaching 55.1% for the current week ending 25 February 2007).

ITV1 appears to have suffered the most from the arrival of the major third terrestrial channel. Back in 1997 when ITV1 was just plain old ITV, it had a viewing share of 32.9% averaged over the 12 months.

Channel 5 achieved 2.9% for the nine full months it broadcasted during the year. Over the next 10 years ITV1 saw its share slipping, until it got to the current figure of 19.6% for 2006. Five’s viewing share stood at 5.7% for 2006, a fall of 0.8 percentage points. As the terrestrial channels face increased pressure from the fragmentation of TV viewing towards non-terrestrial channel, Five is being squeezed along with its closet rivals.

Five’s minority channel competitors, BBC Two and Channel 4, have also seen falls in their respective viewing shares. In 1997 BBC Two claimed 11.6% of television audience share, by the end of 2006 this had slipped to 8.8%. In contrast Channel 4 has fallen less dramatically, from having a viewing share of 10.6% in 1997 to the current position of 9.8% by 2006.

Viewing to non-terrestrial channels (Others) has rapidly grown over the past 10 years. In 1997 Others had 11.8% share of television audience, by 2006 this had increased by nearly three times as much to stand at 33.3%.

Five: 020 7550 5555 www.five.tv