Channel Five to launch two new channels

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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.

The extra capacity has become available as part of a shakeup by Top Up TV that will see some of its existing channels switch to a video on demand, download-only service called Anytime.

Premiership football rights holder Setanta is expected to launch at least one new channel on some of the other spare capacity.

"This is tremendously exciting and the most important development in Five's history since our launch nine years ago," said the Channel Five chief executive, Jane Lighting.

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

The new digital launches can't come soon enough for Five. While ITV and Channel 4 have boosted audiences with the likes of ITV2 and E4 respectively, Five has seen its audience share slump over the last 12 months.

Five was the biggest audience share loser among the five main analogue terrestrial networks so far this year, down 10% to 5.9% in the first five months of 2006 compared with 6.5% in the same period last year.

Five US will feature American drama, comedy, films, sport and youth programming. Five Life will include drama, films, soaps, popular factual and lifestyle programming.

The station will also use the new services to launch spinoff series based on established programming on the main channel.

Five will launch the new channels on bandwidth bought from pay-TV operator Top Up TV.

The Irish pay-TV group has said it wants a Freeview platform to screen its newly acquired live Premiership matches. Setanta paid £392m last month for the rights to show 46 premiership matches per season over three years from August 2007.

Five has long since wanted to launch extra digital channels, and took a stake in Top Up TV last November.

Top Up TV launched in March 2004 and has more than 250,000 subscribers. It is being repositioned as a Sky+-style personal video recorder, with many of its 11 existing channels switching to a download-only basis.

By phasing out the linear streams of channels including Discovery, Cartoon Network and UKTV Gold, it will free up bandwidth for extra channels. Top Up TV bosses hope the PVR offering will also help make it a more attractive product.

The shakeup follows a corporate restructuring at Top Up TV, which renamed itself Minds 1 last month. Executives said it was being demerged to allow itself to be spread over several new companies, including Top Up TV1, Top Up TV2 and Top Up TV 3

world-of-digital.com