Five (TV)

five, formerly known as Channel 5, is the United Kingdom's fifth terrestrial TV Channel. The British frequency plan only allowed for four channels to be transmitted using analogue terrestrial transmitters, so it was very difficult to allocate frequencies for the new channel before its launch in March of 1997 – UHF channel 37 was allocated in many areas, which meant that large numbers of domestic videorecorders (which output on that channel) had to be retuned at the new company's expense.

Multi-Channel Strategy

British television has undergone a lot of change in the 8 years since five's launch. Digital television has grown in popularity with the free-to-air Digital Terrestrial Television service Freeview proving especially popular, with 5 million viewers buying set-top boxes within the service's first three years. Digital Satellite is also popular with 7 million subscribers. All of the channel's rival terrestrial services have adopted a "multi-channel" approach to broadcasting to combat competition from digital only television channels, launching services like ITV2, BBC Three and E4.

Related Topics:
Digital television - Free-to-air - Freeview - ITV2 - BBC Three - E4

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At present five has no sister channels, and rents out the digital spectrum gifted to it by the government to premium service Top Up TV.

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It is believed RTL wants five to adopt a multi-channel strategy, and it is thought to be preparing a bid for Flextech Television. Flextech Television is the television channel operating arm of cable company Telewest, which may have to be disposed of before a merger with NTL can go ahead to complete consolidation in the UK cable industry. However, rivals Channel 4 and ITV are also believed to be preparing bids for Flextech Television, which runs and owns 10 television channels and has a 50% stake in the UKTV business.

Related Topics:
RTL - Flextech Television - Telewest - NTL - Channel 4 - ITV - UKTV

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