Channel 5 - 21 Today

The Dutch version is also notable in that it uses celebrities as contestants. It is one of the most watched programmes on Dutch TV, with the latest series attracting up to 40% of the viewing share, being broadcast on NPO 1, the Dutch equivalent to BBC One.

A toast to the weird cousin that everyone liked at first but now no one really likes to talk about of the main 5 tv channels...
A real cluster____ of a channel nowadays. It’s a shame.

One shouldn't forget C5's first football match - England's 1998 World Cup qualifier in Poland.

Rather inexplicably hosted by Brough Scott and broadcast from a studio designed to look like a sports bar, featuring the cast of Family Affairs and others who had a C5 show to promote. Jonathan Pearce commentated, and reminded us after Alan Shearer scored that C5 was "the channel that brings you England goals" - he'd obviously been told to say this.

While there's footage of the match with Pearce's commentary on YouTube, there doesn't seem to be any of Brough and his pundits struggling to make themselves heard above the Family Affairs stars and dealing with unexpected video clips. I've seen it suggested that this particular footage has actually been destroyed - though surely a not insignificant number of viewers recorded it on their VCRs...

According to Wikipedia this is Channel 5's most watched broadcast of all time - 5.63 million viewers.

I remember that being really odd, they clearly wanted to make their mark by presenting the game in a different way but it didn't work at all. From the little I remember of it, Brough Scott looked like he wished he was still in Kempton Park throughout.

Pearce was still on Capital Gold at the time, he was a favourite in our house so it was quite exciting to see him do a TV game, but I found he was better on radio.

I don’t understand why Channel 5 doesn’t take advantage of being under Viacom’s wing. Having US imports would be a great advantage and adjusting the age range instead of its identity crisis its having right now... it really seems to be an old people’s channel at the moment. Say, having RuPauls Drag Race on at prime time would be a great because it draws millions of viewers globally and having it on an easily accessible free to air channel (instead of behind a paywall on Comedy Central) would draw attention to it. Animation such as Bobs Burgers (Comedy Central has the rights here) at tea time around the same time C4 has The Simpsons on would be great too, and South Park late night, etc...
Thinking about it the reason they’re not using much Viacom stuff is because using that as the foundations for the channel would probably kill it when it’s inevitably sold on again and chucked away like a hot potato in a few years time.

Ah, the amount of times that TV stations have felt the need to revolutionise football output. See also The Premiership (Saturday prime-time edition), Premiership Parliament, Scotsport SPL (chatting to fans and having an "executive box" of older pundits > showing extended highlights). Frankly, The Premiership on ITV was at its best when it knew the game was up and kept it simple - half 10, do the basics, away we go.

Sky is the only station to have successfully done football differently, because they threw an absolute ton of money at doing it properly.

I had a recording of said football match at one time, sadly I wiped it once I decided I couldn't stand football any more.

Wonder how different things might have turned out for C5 had the BBC, ITV and C4 not had spin-off channels in the years that followed, all of whom somewhat stole their thunder. I assume by the time C5 launched they were aware digital TV would be offering some free to air competition (though still far from mainstream in UK homes), although of course the early DTT plans were for a limited FTA offering with mainly pay-TV channels offered via the platform.

Sorry this is just nonsense. What identity crisis? This is the first time in years it’s had any type of clear identity and knows which audience it wants to chase: older and Northern as Ben Frow said in Edinburgh. Just because older skewing shows don’t appeal to you doesn’t mean the channel’s not a success.


They’ve significantly reduced the amount of US imports on the channel because viewers just aren’t as interested in them anymore. When they’ve got access to Game of Thrones and Netflix standard of drama, low quality crime dramas like NCIS just don’t cut it in 2018. No one would watch Drag Race or Bob’s Burgers on C5, they're cult shows at best over here and simply don’t fit what the channel stands for. They’d stand out like a sore thumb in their schedule.

Viacom haven’t aired many of their shows on C5 because they didn’t buy it to dilute their other brands and they bought the channel to increase the amount of content they have to air. They’ve invested millions in programming and are making a sizeable profit from it. Desmond aside they’re the first company to make a real success out of the channel in its history and having spent a fortune converting their office space to fit the channel into their building I’d say it’s safe to say they won’t be flogging C5 any time soon.

Here’s a recent RTS article about how successful the channel’s become in the last few years: https://rts.org.uk/article/reinvention-channel-5

I don’t want to sound like that dreadful Dancc character on DS who treats C5 like an evangelical Christian would the bible, but there seems to be a total misunderstanding on this forum of how well the channel is currently doing, probably because most people on here don’t fit into their demographic and don’t understand that.

Also you can find all the NCIS on Five US, so they still cater for those people just in a different place.

Would that be what the advertisers would want though or are they better where they currently with channel 5 being the buffet of the channels similar to bbc 1 and itv