James Martin

Yep, that episode has gone out on 5 Star only. Is it available to stream as this normally only happens after an episode has been on Channel 5. EDIT: Yes, the episode due to TX today is on My5 - I'd wager it won't air on Channel 5. EDIT again: really surprised it won't get an HD airing - it's the Commonwealth Games cliffhanger!

Were today's episodes affected by the news, either here or in Australia?

Home & Away would find a British outlet due to its lower cost, but it might not be linear. Amazon have taken on the early years; it's not a stretch to suggest they might take on the modern show as a lead-in. The sort of money we're talking is loose change for Amazon in any case. It's also a service most people have anyway (often without realising thanks to the delivery perks) - for me it wouldn't be the end of the world if that was the endgame. The thing is though, every dog has his day. Neighbours has had an exceptional run as has Home & Away, but if you look at how long The Young Doctors or Sons & Daughters lasted, they've both had an exceptional life. It's worth noting that Home & Away only became an accidental hit because ITV took one look at the height of Kylie and Jason mania and wanted a piece of the action.

That isn't gonna happen on Channel 5. It's always been the channel where programmes go to die and on Friday night it showed soft porn. Programmes about Yorkshire are only going to do so much.

He basically wants to target an older audience, and isn't bothered about the youth demo. Hence he's killed off Big Brother, killed off Neighbours and is effectively managing the decline of Home & Away by parking it when the target audience are at work or school!

Are they? I thought with the time difference that wouldn't be necessary, they didn't break for London 2012.

Not sure that's a good thing when the streaming bubble is beginning to burst.

Also confirmed is that the evening showing isn't going back to 6pm. I get the impression Ben Frow wants shot of Home & Away, but can't get rid of it entirely on the main channel. I suppose it fills half an hour at lunchtime and it's cheap fodder for 5 Star.

The key difference is Channel 5 are paying Seven nowhere near what they've been paying Fremantle. So even though they can't sell the slots for as much as they do with Neighbours, overall they can make money on the show.

The BBC have made their response to the various soap changes of the last few months. EastEnders will go up directly against Emmerdale at 7:30pm Mon-Thu. It appears that it is performing particularly well on iPlayer as opposed to linear and the argument is that anyone who wants to watch both shows has the VOD options as well as BBC Three's weekend omnibus and ITV+1, as well as an early-morning weekend omnibus on ITV2. What's really interesting is following the axing of Home & Away's evening showing and the cancellation of Neighbours is that Doctors will be getting a 7pm airing on BBC Two. As with Neighbours and, until recently, Home & Away, this will be an encore of the lunchtime episode. I wonder if this is a Plan B should EastEnders be cancelled in the coming few years?

Yes, and because of Europa League football coverage that week rather than air the "evening" showing in mid afternoon (which they usually did) they TXed at 6pm on Five Life - however it was the key episode where Amanda told Belle she was her mother. It did go out on the main channel at lunchtime the next day, and I believe an extended recap was put on the following 6pm episode.

Neighbours doesn't have ads within the 6pm showing either, interestingly. Personally my feeling is that they should go back to premiering the show on Channel 5 in the evening with the encore the next day at lunchtime like they did before Neighbours came along. I know "first look" rates reasonably well, but I can't help but think they could sell the ad breaks on Channel 5 for a hefty premium if they in effect moved back to the main channel.

The issue with Neighbours specifically is that it's basically made for the UK market and has been for years, so much so Channel 5 can include it in its UK Production quota with Ofcom! What's happened down under is basically a mirror of what Channel 5 have done to Home & Away here and shunted it off to a spinoff channel. It's only costing the network £3m a year to show, either because the Seven Network pick up most of the production tab, or the show has more international deals than Neighbours does. So despite having a "Lifetime Deal" it's able to stay providing lunchtime filler on the main channel and an anchor show on 5 Star, and still earn its keep for the network.

Also... is this not a bizarre U Turn from Channel 5? They sacrificed Home & Away's 6pm slot in favour of Neighbours, and now are dropping Neighbours anyway? They must have known this was coming down the track. The damage has been done to Home & Away now, you won't get those lost evening viewers back. Apparently Neighbours costs C5 £21m a year compared to the £3m it pays for Home & Away. The best course of action would be to move Home & Away to 7pm when Emmerdale moves, market the absolute hell out of it and renegotiate with Seven to show episodes in the UK on their originally intended Aus airdate. If Seven pace falls behind as a result of the bat**** scheduling in Aus well, that's their problem. Although all that said, is being far behind Oz such a big deal? We all watch streaming shows at our own pace and spoilers aren't an issue there...

I don't think it's a given Home and Away will get the 6pm slot back. If anything it would make sense to rejig things to have the premiere at 7pm and do away with First Look. I'm personally not convinced C5 are exactly happy at being stuck with H&A. It wouldn't surprise me if they tried to find a way out of it at some point.

With Emmerdale moving out of 7pm on ITV, could Channel 5 try Home and Away in that slot?

One thing I've only just realised. Channel 5 here and Network Ten in Oz have the same owners. As we know, Ten shunted Neighbours off to Ten's equivalent of Five Star. So it's rather in ViacomCBS' interests to chuck their Aussie child's rival firmly under the bus. I mean even Stevie Wonder should have seen THAT coming but I didn't! ?

Keep saying it - WE know how to seek out Five Star but does the average Bruce or Shelia? I spent half a day to one girl this week explaining that she couldn't plug a Freeview box into the Sky dish at her new but she could plug in a Freesat one (no aerial on the roof only a dish.) But her friend had told her you can "just get the Freeview channels" off the dish and wondered if she could "get an adaptor for the different hole." That's the level we're dealing with when it comes to multichannel. I couldn't even tell you what channel number it is. Whilst the teens are into "streaming" older folk especially don't do that, or EPGs etc. They're from the generation where you pressed a button on a remote, especially those who've never had satellite or cable and have only ever consumed their television via an aerial. Home and Away should be getting 1m minimum, it's far better produced than its Melbourne rival but doesn't get the credit for it here.

Viewing figures: The Monday 8th November "first look" was 5 Star's most watched show, however it only got 432,616 viewers. Neighbours peak for that week, however, was nearly twice that at 980,456.

That was my point - Home & Away is still a big hitter in Ireland and in a decent slot too. It's worth a lot more to RTÉ than it's worth to Channel 5. I wasn't suggesting RTÉ Two is a minority channel, but 5 Star is; although Home & Away does decent business there in spite of the picture quality issues. For me, SD only is a deal-breaker but I accept I'm in a minority; I think streaming has lowered expectations in that regard. I imagine, for example, quite a few people only have the SD version of Netflix rather than pay the premium for HD or 4K. People love the BBC iPlayer - in spite of a slow, clunky interface, limited support for either full HD or 50fps and zero support for Dolby 5.1. And we're all forced to pay for that! I suppose it's like how DAB has overtaken FM as the way to listen to radio - a lot of stations (particularly those owned by Bauer) only broadcast in mono and at a fairly low quality, but still have hugely enviable figures.

I wonder if RTÉ could argue the toss it's on a "minority" channel now except at lunchtime so for Channel 5/Viacom to retain European premiere rights is anti-competitive. Brexit shouldn't affect it though, I wondered if it was an EBU thing but my understanding is that Channel 5 aren't members, and in Australia I think only SBS is in the EBU (which is what enables their participation in Eurovision.)

The 6pm showing is pointless anyway as it's up against Neighbours. It would make more sense to air the blocks properly on 5 Star (as they have post-DoE Obits) if they wanted to push the viewers to 6:30 - although for me that isn't happening until it goes HD on Virgin. 5 Star historically has an very low share right across its schedule - it certainly lags way behind ITV2 and E4. I mean if this pushes up the 6:30 figures, fab - but I still think it's always gonna get crippled by going up against Hollyoaks.

Yes, on Virgin it also shows a 5 STAR DOG and the programme is 1080/50p. However on the actual My5 app - via a firestick, smart TV, Roku etc. - it's DOGless but 576/25p. Odd how it's so inconsistent, you'd expect them to be able to serve at least 720p to all users.

Good question. On Virgin it lists the TX as "Today 13:15". I've just gone through the My5 app and again it lists the TX as today. I'm just playing the same episode on the main app rather than the Virgin catchup system and there's no graphic at all now. However it's not HD (or if it is, it's a lot softer) and got a weird filmic effect. EDIT: It's only HD via Samsung smart TVs, Sky and Virgin! https://help.channel5.com/hc/en-gb/articles/200826431-Can-I-watch-HD-content-on-My5-#:~:text=High Definition (HD) content isn,also available on catch-up. Well. That really sucks! So if you have Sky or Virgin, you should watch through their ecosystem, not the actual My5 app. Not only do you get a better image though, you can fast forward through the ads (at least on Virgin.) Same with ITV - catchup through Virgin is HD but if you use the actual ITV hub it's SD. That said, My5 picture quality is a significant step up from 5 Star on Freeview.

No, it's today's (Monday's) Channel 5 episode, ending with the fake kidnap. The episodes don't drop until they've been broadcast on Channel 5. However, for whatever reason it carries a 5 STAR graphic.