RTL take full control of Five

From Media Guardian


If RTL have full control of Five, does this mean that in the near future we could see Channel 5 being rebranded to RTL?
With the current climate of trying to get media channels ahead of others, this is a most likely scenario.

Why rebrand what is already a well known channel? Everyone either calls it Channel five or Five, so why rename it to RTL or any other part of the RTL empire, names that the vast majority of people have never heard of before? The only largely familiar brand to the UK that RTL own is TalkbackThames, the production arm of the business, and Thames went off the air 12yrs ago. I think Five will be with us for many more years to come.

If they decide to rebrand it to an RTL name, then I think it would have to be about RTL32, which is a bit of a high number for old Joey Public to understand.

What are you trying to say?

Unlikely as it seems, I have a vague memory of reading some time ago about RTL wanting to buy out five's other owners and rename it RTLsomething. This might be of greater consequence than we think.

five is a good brand. Perhaps the stamp of ownership, but why re-brand? Must agree with Mr Harvey.

Wonder what the next target will be - an RTL / GCap merger?

Is five not the name the License holder has to use.

No. The licence is in the name of Channel 5 broadcasting, but the station can call itself anything on screen eg Five. Another example is the Ch3 licences, which are all individual and still in the names of the franchises (like LWT) but on air they're all branded as ITV1.

RTL five ?

Theres an RTL5 in Germany. What about RTL UK?

how about just five?

It would be *hilarious* if they renamed it Thames, mind you

Pity it'd never happen in a million years.