The Channel 5 Thread

Hmm. Changing your point now that it has been proven wrong? You didn't mentioned the 'general public' in your original post.

No-one mentioned the general public Stuart.

Don't be such a child, David.

You know exactly what I was saying and you haven't produced anything to disprove that opinion.

If you want to argue that someone, somewhere, uttered the words 'Channel Five' in 1980, then so be it!

It would have had no relation to the service which launched in 1997, and was certainly not discussed by people until shortly before then.

Who was referring to it as 'Channel Five' then? The fairies at the bottom of the garden, or nobody in general?

That's the point I was making!

That's not entirely true. Although it was a completely separate company, the name "Channel 5" was a consumer brand from the mid-1980s until the early 1990s, in the form of Channel 5 Video.

But there have now been several posts confirming that despite not being a widely-known term, 'Channel 5' was used by many in the industry and in Parliament.

Plymouth has decided, therefore it is true. Please keep up.

Yes the name 'Channel 5' has a long history, any speculation about the next new channel after Channel 4 launched understandably referred to it as 'Channel 5' . The bid for the license in 1992 was for 'Channel 5' and the only bid was from 'Channel 5 Holdings' ( http://www.ofcom.org.uk/static/archive/itc/itc_publications/itc_notes/view_note80.html ). Before the channel we know today came about it was the obvious thing to refer to any new TV service as after the precedent of the name C4. There was, as mentioned above, the video company 'Channel 5' too

'Five' has almost universally been referred to as 'Channel 5' ever since it launched even though it's never been known as that on air. I can't remember the last time I heard it referred to by any third party as 'Five', certainly all the recent coverage of the takeover has referred to it as 'Channel 5'

There were certainly references to a channel 6, I remember newspaper stories many years ago about one getting the go ahead, which of course were nonsense and have of course been superseded by digital TV.

Certainly no-one refers to a a 'Channel 6' now as the vast majority of the population have gone way beyond 6 channels even on terrestrial

Completely forgot about that, in fact my Grandad had a telly that said it right up into the late ninties. Got rid of it when BBC Two needed tuning in every time on the front of the telly. Can't be wasting precious snooker time!!

When Channel 4 was launched it was known that there was a certain amount of capacity for a fifth broadcaster, and there was occasional debate throughout the 80's over what to do with it. There were discussions over the retuning process which would need to occur, and the possibilities of it becoming a network of local 'city stations', and even a third BBC channel.

At all times during these discussions, it was refered to as CHANNEL 5. Admittedly it got more predominant throughout the 90's but it started in the 80's. Which is what I was saying. It wasn't a brand created by what became Channel 5 Broadcasting Ltd. The channel itself was refered to as Channel 5 way before that company ever came into existance. Ok?

In the industry, I've heard some refer to the most popular non-analogue channels as being in a battle to be Channel 6, ie the 6th most watched channel, although admittedly this is rare.