A UK free-to-air television broadcaster, now branded 5, with channels including 5Star, 5USA and Milkshake!, and its own streaming service.
Channel 5 launched on 30 March 1997 as the fifth national terrestrial channel in the UK. It was renamed Five in 2002, went back to Channel 5 in 2011 and rebranded as simply 5 in March 2025, together with its streaming service. Its channels include 5, 5Star, 5USA, 5Select, 5Action and the children's channel Milkshake!, and 5 News is produced by ITN.
Its 2016 rebrand described a remit of Spirited TV with an Emotional Heart. We did not find a longer mission statement in the sources we read. Its schedule mixes UK-made factual and drama series such as All Creatures Great and Small, Our Yorkshire Farm and Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Wild with popular imports such as the CSI and NCIS franchises. Other shows include The Drowning, Big Brother, Eggheads and World's Most Scenic Railway Journeys, with Law & Order, Friends, Neighbours and Home and Away also shown over the years. Its early years were known for a high number of imported American dramas, which shows how much the channel has changed since.
The channel is owned by Channel 5 Broadcasting Limited. It has changed hands several times: Richard Desmond's Northern and Shell bought it in 2010, and Viacom acquired it in 2014. Northern and Shell paid £103.5 million and Viacom £450 million, and the channel now sits within Skydance's UK and Australia division. Wikipedia now describes it as a subsidiary of Skydance Corporation's UK and Australia division. Its headquarters is the Breakfast Television Centre in London. The channel's earlier brand line, used from 2002, was Five, and the 2002 rebrand was directed by Trevor Beattie.
Names linked to the channel in the sources include Richard Desmond, Ben Frow as director of programming, and Jo Bacon in marketing. Those names are historic and leaders may have changed, so treat them as background. A broadcaster like this needs programme commissioners, schedulers, marketers, researchers, digital producers, lawyers and finance staff, as well as the independent companies that make its shows.
We did not find an official site page, a headcount or a list of its offices beyond London, and the Wikipedia page we read did not mention other UK sites, so we cannot say more about where people are based. We have not researched careers pages; check the channel's own website for current roles.
Website: www.channel5.com
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