'Five life' to be rebranded 'Fiver'

Channel Five's digital channel Five Life is to be rebranded Fiver as part of a drive to make it "younger, faster, louder".

Five launched Five Life 18 months ago, aiming to target women with a mix of dramas, lifestyle shows, films and soaps including Home and Away and, since last month, Neighbours.

The digital channel, which was designed to compete against rival services such as Living TV, will relaunch as Fiver at the end of April with a completely new onscreen look as well as new programming such as magazine spin-off Glamour's Best Dressed.

"The channel has enjoyed considerable success since launch 18 months ago and the time is right to build on that success with an exciting raft of new programming," said Hannah Barnes, the director of programmes for Fiver and Five US.

"Fiver will hold on to the best bits of [Five] Life but be younger, faster and louder."

The new on-air look is based on the idea of a "constantly moving cursor delivering unpredictive text to the viewer".

Fiver's cursor will "reference popular culture and will change to reflect seasonal and topical events".

What a crap name. Surely they could have come up with something better than this??

However, Watership Down fans will be happy.

What's the likelihood at least one of the idents will have a five pound note on it?

It's a good indication as to the total value of the channel.

I don't know why they waste their money .They can rebrand and rebrand but if the programmes are s**t people are still not going to watch .They would be better putting the money in to the main channel and getting some decent shows on there.

Exactly - Same crap different name (to put it bluntly).

I really think they've missed a trick by not getting The Colbert Report on there (coming to FX in the summer - rumoured) and some other "hip" US stuff.

I have the feeling 'Fiver' is trying to be like 'Dave'.

A lot of people thought Dave was a dreadful name for a television channel, but actually the rebranding of what was UKTV G2 (arguably an even worse name) has been a triumph. I reckon most Freeview users and a good deal of cable and satellite viewers would know what Dave was and what stuff was on it. Ask them a few years ago what was on UKTV G2 I'm not sure you'd have got much response...

What an unbelievably sh*t name.

There's nothing wrong with the name Five Life . Maybe a slight tweak (e.g. " Five Lifestyle " or something) would be okay, but why make it sound like a £5 note?

Did nobody tell them that it is actually physically possible to overhaul the idents etc without also changing the channel name?

Everyone out side of these forums talked about Dave, this wont happen with Fiver it just doesn't right and Fiver isn't very powerfully enough distinct from Five.

Is it just me or could Five US rebrand as Nickel??

Why would they put them on Fiver when they've another channel that just shows US imports?

Excpet for the inevitable confusion with 'Five Live'