Feature: Channel 5’s Reasons To Celebrate
As it nears its fifth birthday at the end of this month, Channel 5 is showing every sign it is coming of age. An increasing programming budget, meatier programmes, the successful integration of Home & Away and, perhaps not unconnected to the previous factors, a growing audience share, means that it no longer looks wise to dismiss the channel as a funny little also-ran on the terrestrial spectrum.
Despite establishing its reputation as “Channel Filth” with Daily Mail types early on in its career, and suffering reception problems which automatically chopped around a quarter off its potential audience (not to mention the embarrassment of all those re-tuned videos), Channel 5 managed healthy growth in audience share in its first two years on air. Share grew from just under 3% in 1997 to breaking the 5% mark by 1999.
Perhaps not unpredictably, growth has slowed down in latter years, but still looks strong. The acquisition of former ITV soap Home & Away in March 2000 is bringing in rewards at last and monthly audience share has been 6% or more on four different occasions, including January this year. It may lag some way behind the 10% territory occupied by nearest competitors BBC2 and Channel 4, but it does so on a considerably smaller budget, and seems to be closing the gap.
Channel 5’s audience share success should also be considered in the context of a changing landscape in TV audience share. Less than two years into Channel 5’s lifetime came the advent of digital TV, and the start of acceleration in the uptake of multichannel services leading to the 50% penetration recently achieved.
Increasing choice for more viewers has hit the two main terrestrial channels hard, reducing BBC1’s annual average share from 30.8% in 1997 to 26.9% in 2001, while ITV1 went from 32.9% to 26.7% in the same time span. BBC2 and Channel 4 have managed to hold ground as non-terrestrial channels went from an 11.8% average share in 1997 to 19.6% last year, but only Channel 5 among the terrestrial channels has increased its annual average, from just 2.9% in its debut year to 5.8% in 2001.
The question is, where next? Slowly but surely, programming such as the new documentary slot is erasing the ghost of “Films, Fucking and Football”. However, so far the biggest ratings winners for the channel have been one-off events such as films or football matches, so the obvious aim would be to establish more “appointment to view” programming. Although Home & Away is going some way to provide this, had Channel 5 succeeded in its bid for The Simpsons it would have been a major boost, as would a successful “homegrown”.
That said, the very fact that Channel 5 had the firepower to go up against Channel 4 for the animation series, forcing BBC2 out of the race, is evidence of its emergence as what chief executive Dawn Airey recently described as a “chip to be played” in UK broadcasting. Perhaps in the end it just comes down to financial firepower, in which case the passing of this year’s Communications Bill could prove a decisive moment for the channel, as changing ownership laws could open up the possibility of a Murdoch buyout, something Airey is not thought to be averse to. Its future may lie with the decisions of media behemoths beside which the channel is dwarfed, but Channel 5’s place in UK broadcasting cannot be overlooked.
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