My thanks to those who pointed out that Five was (is) broadcast from Croydon and not CP,I always assumed it was the latter so I'm happy to stand corrected. As to the red triangle warning mentioned by an earlier poster though,wasn't that Channel 4 rather than 5?
Yep, it was Friday late night Channel4 in the 80's
I did...though I struggle to remember why now. I guess it was like when BBC2 or C4 came along. But now, when new channels come and go all the time, you wonder why. I remember seeing the "test card" prior to the launch and being overcome with excitmement (I was 16 and a bit of a televisual geek at the time).
Did you have a man come round to retune your TV? Never quite understood why most people couldnt work out how to do it themselves. All seems like a bit of a waste of time/money when you consider multi-channel digital came out a few years later.
I still remember the launch night with the naff Spice Girls and some comedy about Tony Blair. AND a movie every night, yes every night at 9pm! Followed by Jack Docherty stand up comedy and some light porn.
Channel 5 has never been available on Analogue Terrestrial here but when I first recieved Channel 5 was in April 1997 on Sky Analogue and this was a first in history as it was the first UK terrestrial channel to launch on Sky. As BBC 1, BBC 2, Channel 4 and S4C didn't start until the launch of Sky Digital on October 1, 1998 and ITV1 in May 2002.
Channel 5 finally gets full coverage on Digital Terrestial in the area of North West Wales from 6am on Wednesday 21 November 2009. (just nearly 12¾ years after its original launch)
I have seen a number of channels on Sky launch from 1993 onwards, such as Bravo, Discovery (1993), Disney, E4 etc...
I was nearly 2 when Channel 4/S4C launched so would not have an recall of that event. But when it celebrated its 25th anniversary a couple of years ago More 4 went all retro on one Monday night and re-run most of the schedule from its launch including the first ever Countdown. The programmes were re-run from 9pm that evening.
I wonder if the BBC will do something special in 2011 when it celebrates 75 years since it first started on TV.
I remember when the C5 retuner came round to retune the video recorders. He did nothing, so I ended up retuning them myself with a screwdriver! :rolleyes:
I never let the C5 re-tuner in.
I do remember getting channel 5 to work for a few people after channel 5 launched, the re-tuner had inserted blockers rather than spend a few minutes retuning their VCR.
I did...though I struggle to remember why now. I guess it was like when BBC2 or C4 came along. But now, when new channels come and go all the time, you wonder why. I remember seeing the "test card" prior to the launch and being overcome with excitmement (I was 16 and a bit of a televisual geek at the time).
Did you have a man come round to retune your TV? Never quite understood why most people couldnt work out how to do it themselves. All seems like a bit of a waste of time/money when you consider multi-channel digital came out a few years later.
I still remember the launch night with the naff Spice Girls and some comedy about Tony Blair. AND a movie every night, yes every night at 9pm! Followed by Jack Docherty stand up comedy and some light porn.
I have a recording of channel 5's entire opening night.
Available on DVD for the cost of p&p!!! Oh yeah your post office is on strike so scratch that!
We got grainy channel 5 in Tottenham from a crystal palace aerial due to that fact that croydon was not correctly aligned. technically adding a second aerial to the pole correctly aligned would have changed this but who spends that money for one channel? Later that year I moved to Stoke Newington and the aerial aligned perfectly with crystal palace and croydon. We also got channel 5 on Astra where the filmnet channel had been removed to allow its broadcast... Oh yeah the days of the old filmnet decoders...
I remember the build-up to the launch of Channel 5 very well. At the time I lived in Kidderminster (crap midlands town with a similarly useless relay transmitter) and my bedroom at the time had the 14" Matsui portable with loop aerial I'd been given for my sixteenth a couple of years before. I could get the dim, monochrome outline of the test card from about August 1996 but regardless of how high i placed the aerial or whether or not I linked it through the booster I'd bought from Tandy I could only ever see it through a blizzard of snow.
Not to worry though because Feb 1997 rolled around and with Hale-Bopp high in the sky we moved across town to a new place that not only had a full distribution system (so good we could see whatever next door were watching on their analogue satellite system!) but was also (just) within the catchment of Sutton Coldfield main transmitter. Crystal clear images just in time to see the test card change to a rolling preview loop and for the retuner to firkle with our ancient VCR (still not sure what he did to it beside slapping a pretty multicoloured sticker on the side, which was still there when my folks binned it last year!)
As for the channel itself, i wasn't overly impressed. Early Ch5 didn't live up to the hype IMHO and as others have said the 9pm movies quickly degenerated into American made-for-TV tat. I remember Jack Docherty, Fort Boyard, late night baseball (long before my Red Sox supporting US wife could have benefitted) and the first terrestrial station to use a DOG (which IIRC they had to reduce in brightness a few days after launch because it was burning itself into the CRTs of all those big-backed 28" Trinitrons).
Funny to think; that all that effort and within 18 months I'd be marveling at the wonders of my then-GF's new Sky Digital system; the first achingly slow Pace digibox with its EPG and handset-controlled games that would change TV for good. C5 should have held onto the rights to Night Fever; I believe Sky resurrected it in the vastly inferior guise of 'Don't Forget the Lyrics' and it does quite well as take-your-brain out Sat pm fodder.
All that said I still miss the late 90s. Proper pop music, the Verve, Spice Girls, the way the nation stopped over Diana, qualifying for France 98. There was always something to watch on TV, the internet still sounded like a fax machine and cost 1p/min, and some people still thought New Labour were going to save the world. You could still get a 2-up, 2-down for £35K, go to the (smoking) pub without some quango screaming 'binge drinking' have a cheeseburger without cries of 'obesity epidemic!' and buy a set of teaspoons in Tesco without having to prove you were 25.
I was quite excited for the launch. I was a big Spice Girls fan at the time! However, the launch night itself was quite boring and I don't think I tuned in for long.
Fort Boyard & Night Fever were good fun. Friday nights in the early years should have been called 'Shannon Tweed' night.
I don't really watch the channel much now, but it will always hold a special place in my heart for showing Sunset Beach!
Speaking of channel launches, it's the 13th birthday of the station now known as Disney XD. Fox Kids Network launched on Saturday 19th October 1996. Somehow I doubt they'll even mention the 15th anniversary in 2011, let alone today's milestone.
I remember the crap reception with the notice announcing when it was due to go live. The signal on analogue never did improve & to this date nothing on it has worth watching anyway.
in hinsight I think it was an unecessary channel, a few years later the multi channel tv really kicked off
and if you spread five's big shows such as Neighbours, Home and Away, CSI, Flashforward etc out across the other 4 channels then you'd actually get a better schedule
No. I was 17 at the time and whilst we could receive it, I didn't watch the launch (unlike with C4 many years earlier which I did and watched Countdown).
I think it was because I was so used to watching VCR'd programmes by then that a new channel didn't have the same impact in 1997, than it had when watching live TV was the only way to watch TV.
FlashForward is the only C5 show I'd miss at the moment. Yes, I like the Gadget Show, and Fifth Gear, but I could do without them. In fact the only thing I'd really like to come back to Five would be a new series of The Tribe, continuing where it left off (they've recently started repeating it on Sunday lunchtimes which is what reminded me of it).
i vaugly remember but here it is on anologe from a relay:)
i miss the soft prn on at 11pm+ good confused days
You're talking about the great '90s Shannon Tweed movies such as Night Eyes 3, Indecent Behavior, No Contest and Scorned (her best
Don't forget The Red Shoe Diaries and Compromising Situations
Remember Family Affairs? What terrible acting! (IMO)
Looking at Five/Channel 5 in 2009, I think they've been canny with the CSI/NCIS aquistions, but they never really could compete with Channel 4 or the BBC and having the same remit as the BBC didn't help.
I think it's too difficult for the station to provide all round entertainment on the smallest programming budget. (£165m in 2009, down from £220m last year – a fall of £55m. Channel 4's budget by comparison is just under £600m - Source Here
i heard of family affairs, in the early years i always thought of five as rubbish filler and have done until 2007ish when some shows have picked it up but now there is not much keeping it alive, but who cares as we wont see if defunct
Comments
Yep, it was Friday late night Channel4 in the 80's
Channel 5 has never been available on Analogue Terrestrial here but when I first recieved Channel 5 was in April 1997 on Sky Analogue and this was a first in history as it was the first UK terrestrial channel to launch on Sky. As BBC 1, BBC 2, Channel 4 and S4C didn't start until the launch of Sky Digital on October 1, 1998 and ITV1 in May 2002.
Channel 5 finally gets full coverage on Digital Terrestial in the area of North West Wales from 6am on Wednesday 21 November 2009. (just nearly 12¾ years after its original launch)
I have seen a number of channels on Sky launch from 1993 onwards, such as Bravo, Discovery (1993), Disney, E4 etc...
I was nearly 2 when Channel 4/S4C launched so would not have an recall of that event. But when it celebrated its 25th anniversary a couple of years ago More 4 went all retro on one Monday night and re-run most of the schedule from its launch including the first ever Countdown. The programmes were re-run from 9pm that evening.
I wonder if the BBC will do something special in 2011 when it celebrates 75 years since it first started on TV.
and i taped most of the opneing night stuff ..... pity i couldn't do that with channel four
I do remember getting channel 5 to work for a few people after channel 5 launched, the re-tuner had inserted blockers rather than spend a few minutes retuning their VCR.
I'm still waiting to receive Channel 5. OH SNAP!
Available on DVD for the cost of p&p!!! Oh yeah your post office is on strike so scratch that!
We got grainy channel 5 in Tottenham from a crystal palace aerial due to that fact that croydon was not correctly aligned. technically adding a second aerial to the pole correctly aligned would have changed this but who spends that money for one channel? Later that year I moved to Stoke Newington and the aerial aligned perfectly with crystal palace and croydon. We also got channel 5 on Astra where the filmnet channel had been removed to allow its broadcast... Oh yeah the days of the old filmnet decoders...
Not to worry though because Feb 1997 rolled around and with Hale-Bopp high in the sky we moved across town to a new place that not only had a full distribution system (so good we could see whatever next door were watching on their analogue satellite system!) but was also (just) within the catchment of Sutton Coldfield main transmitter. Crystal clear images just in time to see the test card change to a rolling preview loop and for the retuner to firkle with our ancient VCR (still not sure what he did to it beside slapping a pretty multicoloured sticker on the side, which was still there when my folks binned it last year!)
As for the channel itself, i wasn't overly impressed. Early Ch5 didn't live up to the hype IMHO and as others have said the 9pm movies quickly degenerated into American made-for-TV tat. I remember Jack Docherty, Fort Boyard, late night baseball (long before my Red Sox supporting US wife could have benefitted) and the first terrestrial station to use a DOG (which IIRC they had to reduce in brightness a few days after launch because it was burning itself into the CRTs of all those big-backed 28" Trinitrons).
Funny to think; that all that effort and within 18 months I'd be marveling at the wonders of my then-GF's new Sky Digital system; the first achingly slow Pace digibox with its EPG and handset-controlled games that would change TV for good. C5 should have held onto the rights to Night Fever; I believe Sky resurrected it in the vastly inferior guise of 'Don't Forget the Lyrics' and it does quite well as take-your-brain out Sat pm fodder.
All that said I still miss the late 90s. Proper pop music, the Verve, Spice Girls, the way the nation stopped over Diana, qualifying for France 98. There was always something to watch on TV, the internet still sounded like a fax machine and cost 1p/min, and some people still thought New Labour were going to save the world. You could still get a 2-up, 2-down for £35K, go to the (smoking) pub without some quango screaming 'binge drinking' have a cheeseburger without cries of 'obesity epidemic!' and buy a set of teaspoons in Tesco without having to prove you were 25.
Channel 5: beginning of the end? XD
I loved the Nancy Lam cookery show! She was crazy!
Fort Boyard & Night Fever were good fun. Friday nights in the early years should have been called 'Shannon Tweed' night.
I don't really watch the channel much now, but it will always hold a special place in my heart for showing Sunset Beach!
i miss the soft prn on at 11pm+
I remember being shocked as the first episode of family affairs showed a bare bum at like 7 in the evening.
and if you spread five's big shows such as Neighbours, Home and Away, CSI, Flashforward etc out across the other 4 channels then you'd actually get a better schedule
They had a fault during that promo loop (right at the start!)
Hear hear!!!
I think it was because I was so used to watching VCR'd programmes by then that a new channel didn't have the same impact in 1997, than it had when watching live TV was the only way to watch TV.
You're talking about the great '90s Shannon Tweed movies such as Night Eyes 3, Indecent Behavior, No Contest and Scorned (her best
Don't forget The Red Shoe Diaries and Compromising Situations
Remember Family Affairs? What terrible acting! (IMO)
Looking at Five/Channel 5 in 2009, I think they've been canny with the CSI/NCIS aquistions, but they never really could compete with Channel 4 or the BBC and having the same remit as the BBC didn't help.
I think it's too difficult for the station to provide all round entertainment on the smallest programming budget. (£165m in 2009, down from £220m last year – a fall of £55m. Channel 4's budget by comparison is just under £600m - Source Here