Is There A Future For C5?

Armed with one bid – of £1000 – the ITC has now to begin the unenviable task of deciding whether to award the Channel 5 licence or to accept that the whole situation is “at best a nightmare. At worst an unmitigated disaster.”

Despite gloomy predictions, Thames forged ahead at noon yesterday, placed its nominal bid and proved to the many critics that it is willing to shoulder all the hitches that have and will crop up during the birth of Channel 5.

Channel 5 Holdings, the consortium in which Thames is the main partner, haspromised that an “army of retuners” will be rounded up to visit 7 million homes and reset all faulty video recorders in under three weeks. The task will cost the consortium over £75m to complete, with plans to start the service on a 24-hour basis in the London area.

The content proposal for the new channel looks even more adventurous. It will be based on CityTV Toronto, which has been called irreverent, exciting, iconoclastic, brilliant and futuristic. The idea is to provide a service which is “to be different from and complementary to all other UK channels” although it accepts that the style will have to be adapted to suit the United Kingdom.

Adaptation seems to be the main feature in Channel 5 Holdings’ proposal. If the ITC decides that it deserves the licence, then the work is only just beginning. If, on the other hand, the proposal is not regarded as viable the decision could be seen as saving the consortium a lot of wasted time and money. Whatever the outcome, the proposal put forward to the ITC yesterday is certainly ambitious, regardless of what the critics say.