I'm old enough to remember the channel's inauguration way back in 1997, and the promises made at the time about content and the direction of the new terrestrial broadcaster.
We were told that movies would run with none of the annoying adverts in between, and that 24-hour, quality content was the aim of the game. (1)
It actually kicked-off well, all things considered. Despite southern parts of the UK struggling to get the channel tuned, (as French signals caused interference) over 2.5m people watched the channels first broadcast on 30/03/97, with a larger number of viewers than channel 4 had when it started broadcasting.
Thinking back, C5 had a lot of promise. Saatchi & Saatchi handled the ad campaign, which was a colourful display that encapsulated the 1990's for me.
Unfortunately, the channel soon started facing problems with their content, culminating in an ITC investigation in 2000 due to allegations of "broadcasting too much sex and smut". (2) Programmes such as Naked Jungle, which was voted the most "memorably rotten" show of all time, (3) further lowered the tone and the channel never really recovered.
At the time, Naked Jungle did attract over two million viewers, which was a record for c5 at the time, (4) but it attracted several complaints, due to the format;
"which featured host Keith Chegwin and 10 contestants all jumping around with no clothes on".
In the long run the gambit failed to pay off, and since their first broadcast in 1997, they've struggled to emulate the success of both BBC and ITV, focusing on reality TV and American imports instead of home-grown shows.
C5 managed to gain the rights to reality TV behemoth Big Brother in 2011. The last c4 series had an average of 3m viewers, but numbers dropped to 1.6m a year later when it made the switch. (5) Losing just under half of their prospective viewers must have been a blow - and it highlights the difficulties the channel faces when attracting new viewers.
Nonetheless, the figures were good for C5, despite numerous complaints for a variety of perceived issues over the last few years. (6) In fact, Celebrity Big Brother (2011) ranks highest in their list of all-time most watched shows, with 5.57m for the series début.
BB has also faced controversy because of the decision to allow online gambling website Supercasino to sponsor them since 2013, further tarnishing the reputation of the channel in the eyes of some viewers.
Aside from Benefits Britain, there are other questionable programmes that air on c5 regularly with terrible names like; Can't pay? We'll take it away! This daytime reality show consists of;
"Following people on the sharp end of bad debt - and those whose job it is to take the money back". (6)
Should this programme really have been commissioned in the first place? It's obvious they have no qualms about filming despair, but this programme is pretty tasteless on a variety of levels. Of course it must be cheap to produce, but that doesn't justify broadcasting people's misery on national telly in a bid for ratings.
C5 was recently purchased for £450m by media giant Viacom. The channel's chief operating officer, Paul Dunthorne had this to say at the time;
"The combination of Channel 5 with Viacom's global resources, technology and expertise adds further to the momentum of the business and offers numerous exciting opportunities for the channel's future." (7)
Hopefully these "exciting opportunities" will involve more original programming, with less of a reliance on reality tv and foreign imports.
At least there's a chance the new ownership will kick-start a jump in quality, but with traditional TV audiences continuing to dwindle, it may be too large a task for the nations fifth largest broadcaster.
It's definitely not too late for c5, but until they learn to respect themselves and the viewer, how can they expect the public to respect them?
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