Channel 5 at 25: has TV’s mission impossible been accomplished?
Opinion
This week marks the 25th anniversary since the launch of Channel 5. It is remarkable that the broadcaster has quietly achieved success without the bells and whistles.
“This isn’t mission difficult – it’s mission impossible.”
Anthony Hopkins’s line from Mission: Impossible II could have applied to all of Channel 5’s controllers after Dawn Airey’s ineffectual launch of the UK’s last terrestrial channel back in 1997.
But under Ben Frow, director of programming, the runt of the litter has elbowed its way to a prominent place in the nation’s broadcasting ecology.
Despite the perhaps unwelcome praise of frequently erratic Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries of C5 as the “levelling up” network, Frow’s channel has indeed been a quiet success story.
Presumably, C5 won’t be tempted to use Dorries’ tribute in any promos, mindful of the alienating effect it may have on many viewers.
Indeed, Frow hasn’t exactly bought in to the Tory Government’s Brexit-fuelled insistence on ‘Britishness’ on UK television channels.
He said: “I don’t really know what the government meant. My job is to look at the schedule, make sure there’s a nice variety and try and second guess the audience…. I am viewer-led. I am not government-led when it comes to creative ideas and the Channel 5 schedule.”
Although, when she is looking for a post-Cabinet career, might C5 want to give former I’m a Celebrity… contestant Dorries a shot in a C5 reality game show revival?
Touch The Truck, The Farm, Naked Jungle…In Therapy?
Although C5 still transmits a fair amount of salacious sex-themed documentaries long associated with the brand (“Football, films & fucking”, in the words of former boss Airey), that territory appears to have been ceded to formerly upmarket rival Channel 4. The Alex Mahon/Ian Katz regime at C4 continues its quest to stabilise falling ratings with a slew of smutty shows, including Naked Attraction, My First Threesome, Mums Make Porn, 100 Vaginas, My & My Penis, Generation Porn, The Sex Clinic, Dogging Tales, Gay Pets, Sex Toy Secrets, Sex Toy Stories, A Very British Sex Shop, The Sex Testers, Naked Beach, Sex Box, Adult Material, The Sex Clinic, Sex Odyssey, SeXXXy Tatts, LA Vice: Porn Stars & Hustlers, Gay Sex, Apps & Men, Sex Party Secrets, The Sex Testers and Sex in Lockdown: Keep Shagging & Carry On…
Ad infinitum.
Despite the channel’s acquisition by Viacom (now Paramount) in 2014, its budget remains dwarfed by the four other terrestrial networks; but that has not prevented C5 from punching above its weight, winning the RTS and Broadcast Channel of the Year awards in 2020.
As critical approbation for the broadcaster has increased, so has C5’s share of viewing, again in contrast to Channel 4, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary with a barrel-scraping exercise in “controversial, taboo and trouble-making” programming.
Indeed, the broadcaster appears so bereft of in-house commissioning moxie that it has hired former popular factual head Liam Humphreys (The Undatables, Naked Attraction) to inject much-needed oomph in the season.
The secret (if there is one) of Channel 5’s success?
There is an appreciation of the audience that the channel is seeking to cater for. Take this comment from Frow, who was commenting on C5 gaining higher viewing figures in previously neglected regions of the UK (such as Yorkshire, the Midlands and Scotland):
“Of the people, for the people. We’re not highfalutin, we’re not snooty, we don’t look down on our audience, we’re not patronising.”
In terms of programming, this has meant a mix of comfort TV shows such as the hugely popular revival of All Creatures Great & Small, accessible history and arts shows, royal documentaries, celebrity travelogues and modestly budgeted original drama.
Hardly earth-shattering, you might say, but delivered with a confidence missing in the obsessive second-guessing of both ITV and Ch4.
The imminent departure of expensive and long in-decline Australian soap Neighbours presents an opportunity for Frow to plough the released monies into new programming.
But it would be unfair to say that Frow accomplished all this success on his own.
His predecessor, the affable Jeff Ford, laid the groundwork. Ford also had to put up with previous owner, the notoriously coarse Northern & Shell founder Richard Desmond, for longer than Frow. That would have tried the patience of many.
That is not to say that Frow didn’t also have to experience the patented boorish Desmond treatment.
As Frow recalls: “[Desmond’s] opening words to me were, ‘Fuck me, you’re short.’ I said: “Not that short.’ And he said: ‘And you’re a poofter, too. And I said: ‘I’m a short poofter and I’m very good at my job.”
And, to give the devil his due, our old friend Kevin Lygo succeeded to a (small) extent in classing-up C5 (or Five, as it was rebranded for a time) with the likes of Tim Marlow’s arts shows.
But other bosses Richard Woolfe (Don’t Stop Believing), Ben Gale, who commissioned the Minder revival, Shane Richie’s first ill-starred reboot (later followed by Jim’ll Fix It), Dan Chambers (The Farm, Back to Reality) and of course Dawn Airey (Naked Jungle, Touch the Truck) all failed to make a positive impression.
Stephen ArnellIncidentally, Ben Frow avoided working with Lygo during an earlier stint at the channel, saying:“I don’t think I was Kevin Lygo’s type of person”
Unsurprising, given the ITV director of content’s recorded comments on gay people, such as the following piece of badinage from 2012 reported in Broadcast regarding a possible personality clash with colleague Peter Fincham: “I’ve been in a homosexual relationship with Peter for years”
Stay classy Kevin.
Bearing in mind the improvement in C5’s quality, who knows, if the late Adam Faith had the good fortune to live another 19 years and die under Frow’s tenure, his final words may not have been: “Channel 5 is all shit, isn’t it? Christ, the crap they put on there. It’s a waste of space.”
Stephen Arnell began his career at the BBC, moving to ITV where he launched and managed digital channels. He continues to consult for streamers and broadcasters on editorial strategy. He currently writes for The Spectator, The Independent, and The Guardian on film, TV and cultural issues. He is also a writer/producer (including Bob Fosse: It’s Showtime for Sky Arts) and has just completed his first novel.
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