Five US

World Screen Weekly, October 11, 2007

LAUNCH DATE: October 16, 2006

COUNTRY: U.K.

OWNERSHIP: Five in the U.K., which is fully owned by the RTL Group.

DISTRIBUTION: 19.6 million households (77.1 percent of all U.K. households have access to the channel).

DESCRIPTION: Five US is dedicated to showcasing the best American television, with a lineup comprised of established and new U.S. drama series, blockbuster movies, comedies, and a variety of American sports.

DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMMING: Hannah Barnes

CHANNEL EDITOR: Kate Barnes

HEAD OF SCHEDULING: Karolina Stallwood

PROGRAMMING STRATEGY: Five US may only be celebrating its one-year anniversary this month, but the channel is already carving out a niche for itself in the competitive multichannel market in the U.K. “We are already one of the top twenty digital channels during prime time and we are not even a year old,” says Hannah Barnes, the director of programming for Five US.

Barnes attributes much of the channel’s success to it having a “terrestrial mothership” in Five, as well as its availability on the digital terrestrial TV platform Freeview. According to Barnes, Five US has been building on Five’s reputation for featuring top American product, with an emphasis on long-running comedy and drama series. She notes that the channel is targeted at 16- to 34-year-olds, “primarily men, but women watch the channel as well.”

Five US buys content from all the major studios, as well as American independent producers and distributors. The network currently has “a life-of-series deal” for the hit forensic crime series CSI, which continues to be the strongest performer for the network. Other successful programs include the CBS series Shark (from Twentieth Century Fox Television Distribution), the FOX series House (NBC Universal International Television Distribution) and the recently acquired CBS series Numb3rs (CBS Paramount International Television), which kicked off its run with 471,000 viewers.

Dirt, the FX series starring Courteney Cox as a tabloid magazine editor in Los Angeles, is another acquisition that has done well for Five US. “We picked up Dirt when no one else would pick it up [and] no one else had shown an interest [in the series] in the U.K.,” notes Barnes. The debut of Dirt on July 9 reeled in 680,000 viewers, Five US’s biggest audience to date, and also ranked as the highest-rated new series premiere on multichannel in the U.K.

During the day, the schedule features comedy and retro drama blocks that include shows like The Fall Guy, Happy Days, the improv comedy series Whose Line is it Anyway? and the 60s spy drama Mission Impossible. Into the evening, American sports come on at 7 p.m., and from 8 p.m. onwards, the channel will schedule blockbuster U.S. dramas and movies.

Five US has recently expanded its transmission hours, which has contributed to “an uplift in our performance,” says Barnes. At launch last October, the channel was on the air from 4 p.m. to 1 a.m., but from June 17 has been broadcasting from noon. The channel has also recently unveiled its +1 service on satellite, which provides time-shifted viewing.

Aside from its U.S. comedy and drama imports, Five US also serves up topical American documentaries such as United 93: The Flight That Fought Back. A diverse range of American sports coverage is also featured on the channel, with programming from the NBA, NFL, MLB and NASCAR, among others.

Blockbuster American movies also play a large role in Five US’s schedule, and have done particularly well in the Thursday night 9 p.m. film slot, with titles such as Spider-Man 2, Terminator 3, Men in Black 2, and S.W.A.T. all attracting over 500,000 viewers. “Since we’re known for having U.S. content, we often find that a film will perform better on Five US than it might on one of our competitors, because they’re not known for having those sort of films,” notes Barnes.

While the slate is dominated by acquisitions, Barnes is open to the idea of commissioning its own programming “if the right idea is presented to us and it fits within the channel.” In the past, the channel has commissioned programs such as CSI: The Inside Story, a behind-the-scenes look at the successful crime franchise that features interviews with lead actors, supporting cast and crew from the series.

WHAT’S NEW: More U.S. series are expected to be premiering on the channel over the coming months, including the Showtime series Californication and NBC’s 30 Rock this fall, as well as the new FOX series K-Ville, which will launch next year.

The channel also has new themed-movie weeks for the fall, including “Adam Sandler Movies,” featuring Anger Management, Spanglish and Mixed Nuts; “Martial Arts,” featuring Kickboxer, Jackie Chan’s Who Am I? and The Medallion; and “Horror” (Resident Evil, Bram Stoker’s Dracula).

WEBSITE: www.five.tv/us/

—By Irene Lew