News: five To Launch 2 New Channels

Icehouse

five have announced plans for two new channels, five US and five Life

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Channel Five will finally realise its multichannel dream with the launch of two new channels, Five US and Five Life.
Five US will showcase imported Five hits such as CSI and Law and Order, while Five Life will be aimed at women, with soaps and lifestyle programming as well as an extension of the channel's children strand, Milkshake.

Both channels initially will be available on Freeview on bandwidth bought from pay-TV operator Top Up TV. Five said it has plans to also make them available on satellite and cable.


http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,,1790698,00.html

JohnC.

If all that stuff is getting 2 new channels, what on earth do they have to show on the main channel?

Mossy Monk

i would welcome that five US channel

Jungle Boy

Five will only have the British rights to their programmes. So I expect these channels will be only available via a UK free-to-view card (RTE - CSI: Miami, Law and Order, Joey, etc).

L1011

If Five actually know what "free-to-air across all platforms" means, you won't even need a UK FTV card. However, they might be like C4....

Icehouse

MYOB wrote:

If Five actually know what "free-to-air across all platforms" means, you won't even need a UK FTV card. However, they might be like C4....

Where did you read "free-to-air across all platforms" ?? I presume until announced otherwise that these channels will be FTV on satellite.

Icehouse

"The two new free-to-air channels, Five US and Five Life, will launch on Freeview in the autumn. Five bosses are currently in negotiations to make sure it launches on satellite and cable platforms at the same time."

The above quote is from a new Guardian article. I would think it's safe to say it's too early to assume that they'll be FTV or FTA - it could go either way depending on these negotiations. I'm sure the BBC, ITV and C4 will want them to be FTA so that a strong Freesat alternative to Sky can exist, while Sky will no doubt be endeavouring to ensure they scramble.

L1011

over on D:S - I think it was quoted from Broadcast or similar.

Icehouse

Okay, the official release, and they do say FTA

Monday 05 June 2006

Five is to launch two new free-to-air channels across all digital platforms, it was announced today (MON).

The channels, Five US and Five life, will go on air this Autumn.

Five US will bring UK viewers the very best of American television in genres such as: established and new drama; comedy; films; sport and youth programming.

Five life will feature an extension of the channel’s hugely popular pre-school strand Milkshake! as well as drama; films; soaps; popular factual and lifestyle programming skewed towards a female audience.

Five will also be using its new offerings to launch spin-off series based on established programming on the main channel.

Chief Executive, Jane Lighting, said: “This is tremendously exciting and the most important development in Five’s history since our launch more than nine years ago.

“We believe these two new channels will play to our programming strengths, highlighting genres in which we have an acknowledged track record.

”A huge amount of work has gone on behind the scenes to create two propositions that genuinely increase viewer choice across the digital platforms.”

Five has launched a major recruitment drive to staff the new channels which will be funded by a substantial additional investment from the broadcaster’s sole shareholder the European media group, RTL.

Five US and Five life will be launched on Freeview and Five plans to make both channels available on satellite and cable. The availability of the Freeview capacity is linked to Five’s strategic investment in Top Up TV’s business as previously announced. Five was launched as Channel 5 on March 30th, 1997.

Charles Slane

More4 was touted as being Free To Air on all platforms as well until Sky reminded Channel 4 that it had contractually committed it's future satellite channels to be encrypted by Sky until the contract runs out.

Could Five find itself grabbed by the same short (and curly) clauses?

Icehouse

Charles Slane wrote:

More4 was touted as being Free To Air on all platforms as well until Sky reminded Channel 4 that it had contractually committed it's future satellite channels to be encrypted by Sky until the contract runs out.

Could Five find itself grabbed by the same short (and curly) clauses?

Quite possibly - we'll have to wait and see.

byte

Free-to-air is sometimes used loosely by press, and indeed press reports.

What the can mean by free is that it won't cost more on top of a subscription... or that any subscription will pick it up (FTV card I guess in Sky's case)

Can't see either of these channels being much good, though good I guess for those with FTV cards... plus the upcoming FilmFour going presumably FTV next month!

Icehouse

byte wrote:

Free-to-air is sometimes used loosely by press, and indeed press reports.

What the can mean by free is that it won't cost more on top of a subscription... or that any subscription will pick it up (FTV card I guess in Sky's case)

Can't see either of these channels being much good, though good I guess for those with FTV cards... plus the upcoming FilmFour going presumably FTV next month!

If the big boys all go FTa then some of the smaller channels may follow suit - FashionTV and TV5 France for example have always stated having an FTA policy - they were driven by market/Sky policy to encrypt in the UK.

byte

Yeah, Sky seem able to talk many FTA channels into encrypting. Extreme Sports is the most recent, but there have been others like TCM and Boomerang and the ones you mentioned.

I wonder what FTA channel will be next to encrypt? Let the betting commence!

I see Reality TV possibly being next!

L1011

Turner mass-encrypted across Europe, but Sky was the start of the landslide for both Viacom channels (~1991) and TF1 channels (~1998) encrypting when they got MTV Europe (albeit via VC flags and not truely encrypted IIRC, like VH1 definitively was) and Eurosport.

Reality TVs owners are encrypted everywhere else, but they also own the horror channel and I think something else - they're relatively major players in the FTA world. The sooner the damn freesat system gets going...

channelsurfer

looks like they will be ftv then and not fta. good for me as I have a ftv card but did get a half price offer from sky last week to resubscribe for 6 months. will have to choose whether I want sport and have to take out the ftv card for 6 months loosing 5 etc or am happy with the way I am at the moment with the ftv card.

watty

SKy gives free to freeish carriage and /or free or freeish EPG in exchange for encryption. Hard for RTE, TV5, TVEi, DW-TV and others who could not justify expense of 28E at all.

If course if you a really rubbish station which has not much value to Mix Packs then Sky is uninterested, you then have to pay nearly as much for EPG as carriage.

If you want ethier FTV card or your own direct subscription then the "free encryption" which costs Sky nearly nothing suddenly costs you £1M to £90M p.a. and/or a slice of the revenue.


Guess what I think is the "real" reason Ireland's C6 is not on Sky?

L1011

Carraige has dropped in price a lot then

Generic channel, no regional restrictions or changes, no red button, no audio description, etc - £78,000 a year. Carraige used to cost >15K/month last time I checked.

watty

Did anyone say recently how much bare carriage costs? I presume 15k a month is TV as I saw a quote of 45k /pa @13E for a Radio station (no EPG etc with anyone).

My point is that RTE pays for NOTHING other than uplink because it suits Sky to have them in Mix pack.

I'd be surprised if TV5, DW-TV or TVEi pay anything for encrypted carriage on Sky. But no doubt pay "normal" rates on 19E and 13E where they are all FTA.

It illustrates what a ripoff the Sky platform charges are to anyone not invited to be part of the Sky package to benefit Sky.

Is 78K the current money for doing nothing to be on TV EPG? And then Sky+ SkyHD are charged AGAIN for recording even FTA channels on basis that they are using the Expensive To Sky EPG?

Admittedly we have the entierly logical (to BBC & Sky ) anomoly that in UK BBC pay lots to be on UK EPG and Sky pay BBC (how much?) for BBC1 NI and BBC2 NI to be on ROI EPG. We are lucky Sky doesn't charge a lot extra for Sky+ / SkyHD in ROI as unlike the UK, the EPG actually costs a little here (Though I'd say still makes a big profit).

Mind you even 20K / month is only 240K a year, which is small beer in running a TV channel. Perhaps 15k/month is for Stereo Radio on 28E Astra 2D?