Channel 5 Transmission Discussion/Updates

[James Martin]

Because of the lifetime deal, no other broadcaster can acquire it from Channel 5.  It's obviously a millstone round their neck and all the effort is being put into Neighbours.  No broadcaster in their right mind buys a teen soap and sticks it on in the middle of the day when only a handful of people will be watching.  What also didn't help is moving the premiere to lunchtime to match Neighbours.  That should have never happened.  It drew far bigger audiences when the first showing was at teatime.

I just really feel this is going to decimate the audience long term.  A lot of people who watch at 6pm just won't make the effort to seek it out.  It's like when Murray (and I'm sure from next year Radacanu) are playing at Wimbledon when BBC Two are scheduled to do the coverage, they always swop over the two schedules because the tennis gets bigger audiences on BBC One.

Yes it's on My5, but do many people really bother with streaming?  You do have to be pretty clued up on computers to find what you want to watch on catchup players, that's assuming you have a smart TV and those are often only the main set.  I doubt most kids bedroom TVs are smart.

It's going to kill the show completely in the UK.  The lunchtime showing will shuffle off to 5* in a year or two and it'll quietly die in the UK.  A far cry from the 14m it got on ITV.

Maybe I'm wrong and it'll clean up on 5* but I don't think people make the effort to wander that far up the EPG.  Case in point - Eurovision gets a few hundred thousand on BBC Four in midweek but 8m+ when it moves to BBC One on the Saturday night.  A lot of people simply don't know there's three shows, not just one.

[Red Ranger 1]

At the risk of sounding like the old guy telling the kids to stay off his lawn, do the target audience for a "teen soap" (if that's what Home and Away even is these days, given the distinct lack of teens) even understand the concept of appointment television? I think the days when everyone would gather at their set at 6pm for the next episode are long gone. If there are any youngsters still watching the show every day, then they're probably already watching it on 5* at 6.30pm, because the concept of waiting a day to watch it on the main channel is completely alien to them. I imagine quite a few older audience members do the same, I think quite a few of the regular UK pace contributors on here are already watching at 5* pace and then waiting to post their thoughts in the Channel 5-pace thread. (If you go on Digital Spy, they're all discussing Hollyoaks at E4 pace and not even thinking about the fact that the previous episode was on Channel 4 that day. Back in the days of the IMDb forums, all the "UK-pace" discussion similarly seemed to be about the episode that had been on 5* that evening.)

And if they're not doing that, then they're probably all either watching online when it's convenient for them anyway, or they've got the show on series link and binge watch it when they've got a free afternoon.That's the way today's kids and older kids are going, not watching it an episode a time. It's why the UK soaps are moving towards putting a whole week's worth of episodes up in advance as "box sets" and why the main channels are more likely to advertise whole seasons of shows available on their websites than actually encourage people to watch the latest episode at 9.00 on Thursday.

Anyone that's home at 1.15pm is likely to be watching then anyway.The 6pm slot has never really been that convenient for people at work, many of whom are still going to be travelling home at that time.It was more geared towards children just home from school who, like I said, are more likely to be watching at 6.30pm anyway. So the at-work generation were likely already recording it or watching online, and assuming they can remember to record it at lunchtime rather than in the evening, it shouldn't affect them.

I guess there's a potential long-term problem when it comes to picking up new viewers.They're possibly more likely to be channel-hopping at 6pm on Channel 5 than 6.30pm on 5*.That, I guess, is where advertising and word of mouth come in.We'll see in a few years' time how well that's been done.

But yeah, the show died in the UK for most people back in 2000, when it got taken away from its ITV home and off air completely for a year, so everyone thought it was over and barely noticed when it popped up on a minor network. It's just us die-hards watching it now, I think!

[homeandawayroxsomuch.]

On 25/09/2021 at 12:50, 630si said:

Thinking about it, they could soften the blow for us here by announcing home and away will catch up with aus pace on 5star. Imagine that! 

Why would you want to catch up with Aus pace on 5 Star when Australia have an even longer break over Christmas than we do, and unlike in 2013 when they had a 5 week break in UK summer and showed selected episodes from each of the first 25 years of Home and Away then showed episodes from 2000 for a couple of months, this no longer happens and instead we get Friends or something for that 6 weeks at Christmas.  I can't be that bothered with Friends when I have it on boxset anyway, so I switch off after Neighbours in that break

If I HAVE to have a 2 month break but can only watch episodes from after the switch to Channel 5, show me Fisher running into Marilyn in London, show me the reunion episodes from 2002 (and not just parts that are Kirsty and Kane-focussed - I want Blake and Sophie reuniting, Frank and Steven meeting Flynn, I want Sam and Seb in the same room).

[Psychic Wombat]

Replacing H&A 6pm slot with news is dumb. If I want to watch news I switch on one of the many news channels, I fail to see how it will attract more viewers, it's not as though Channel 5 news is that good. If they had to bump off one show it should have been neighbours which gets worse year by year. I guess they want us to watch on catchup for some reason.

On 25/09/2021 at 08:27, ter06 said:

I watched a few episodes on RTE when home in Ireland recently and they don’t show the promos which I really enjoyed. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for showing a promo when it’s a big story but all we get is a few scenes usually resolving the cliffhanger we have just seen and it ruins it .

 

Anyway, back on topic and the important thing to remember is Five are legally obliged to show Home and Away for as long as it’s made so it’s not going anywhere. 

I've never understood the promo trailers that spoil the story after ending on a cliffhanger. Why would you do that?

[James Martin]

I believe C5 pay a lot less for H&A than they do Neighbours, which the BBC gave up based on the amount Freemantle were asking for it.  Consequently, I think that's why Neighbours gets all the love and attention.

[James Martin]

As for Channel 5, sometimes I think ITV were very careless in losing it despite all the edits.  Channel 5 treated the show brilliantly until 2008 but then it was all about Neighbours and we got forgotten.  ITV meanwhile failed to fill the slot successfully for years, including two failed soaps.  However, the network has invested heavily in daytime since.

I certainly don't think ratings would have fallen to the level they have on ITV and I certainly don't think ITV would have pulled the teatime showing.

[Revealed]

I don't think I've watched Home & Away at 6pm on Channel 5 since 5 Star or whatever it was called back then was launched. These days I don't finish work until 6pm. 

I do however think they're shooting themselves in the foot by not showing it at Australian pace. I've not watched it on 5 Star for maybe 10 years now because there's ways to watch it at Australian pace on the internet and I'm sure plenty of others do the same. I would much rather watch it on TV than on the internet and if 5 Star showed it at Australian pace then I'd watch it on 5 Star. If they're never going to do that them I'm just going to continue watching it on the internet.

[James Martin]

I have to confess I've not watched at Aussie pace since downloads were stopped on here in the late 2000s.  The only versions I can find are usually horribly distorted in some way, although with a VPN it's not exactly hard to get the episodes now; alas my supplier (which I mainly use when I go to Eurovision so I can still place bets) doesn't have any Aussie servers.

[630si]

All 5star first look EPs above 400k in the latest Barb ratings. They were up here during lockdown too. Hopefully, if channel 5 do actually market the change and let people know where it is at 6:30 (everyone who has channel 5 also has access to 5 star) it could be over 600k. And as I've said there are adverts that make the show money over on 5star. (C5 have not played adverts during the 6pm showing for years now, just program trailers) 

There is indeed method in the madness. 

I do think 5star could run around a week behind aus accounting for the eractic  channel 7 schedule and it would greatly help. 

 

I received my standard rubbish reply from C5 that didn't answer any of my questions lol

Edited September 28, 2021 by 630si

[Red Ranger 1]

They do already have announcements at the end of every Channel 5 showing that you can catch the next episode on 5* at 6.30pm.So assuming they can get Ray Meagher et al to re-record them to stop pointing people towards the 6pm showing, viewers should know where to find it.