5Star (stylized as5STAR) is a Britishfree-to-air television channel owned byChannel 5 Broadcasting Limited,[1] a wholly-owned subsidiary ofParamount Global, which is grouped underParamount Networks UK & Australia division. It originally launched as the female-orientatedFive Life on 15 October 2006, and was relaunched asFiver on 28 April 2008 with a revised version of the same concept. The channel was later re-branded as 5* on 7 March 2011, and later, it was re-branded as its current name on 11 February 2016. The network focuses on documentaries, comedy and drama, with original content such asRich Kids Go Skint andYoung, Dumb & Banged Up in the Sun, along with some American and Australian imports.[2]
A collage of excerpt images from 5STAR's launch as Five Life c. October 2006.
Five Life was intended to be a female-oriented channel emphasising lifestyle programming.[3] Channel 5 announced that programming on launch would includeThe Ellen DeGeneres Show,Love My Way,Windfall,Angela's Eyes, and a weekday double-bill of the chat showTrisha Goddard. On 16 October 2006, a day following the channel's launch, Australian soap operaHome and Away began airing from episode 4212 (Season 19, Episode 112). New episodes were shown Monday to Friday in a 'First Look' screening with episodes following the Channel 5 airing. Repeats of popular female-skewing dramas, both nationally and internationally produced, were soon acquired. A time-shift version was launched following the channel's launch in summer 2007.[4]
On 28 April 2008, Five Life was relaunched as Fiver, with a new branding strategy aimed at a younger audience. The rebranding introduced a "younger, faster, louder" concept to compete with Sky Living. The channel adopted a unique on-air presentation featuring a "cursor" motif, which typed out words related to programs and current events.[5]
In 2011, the channel was re-launched as 5Star (stylized as5★ or5*, pronounced "Five Star"). The new brand focused on a "fun-loving" concept, with initial acquisitions including$#*! My Dad Says,Better with You andParenthood.[6] On 11 April 2011, 5Star reduced its broadcast hours to 13:00 to 00:00, replacing the hours withdrawn with more teleshopping.[citation needed] When some of these new programmes failed to impact the channel's ratings, several were dropped and replaced by new locally produced and acquired programming. These included the American series8 Simple Rules,10 Things I Hate About You,Alphas andThe Lying Game.[7]
In 2012, in consort with C5's acquisition of the series, 5Star began airing theBig Brother companion showBig Brother: Live from the House, which aired 60 minutes of live feed following every eviction show. In 2013, afterLive from the House set ratings records for the channel, the programme was expanded to two hours nightly.[8] However, ratings were at a share below that of the channel's average, with just 70,000 watching the first live feeds.[9] Subsequently, the live feeds were shut down and the spin-off show last aired in June 2013.[10] Also in 2013,American Idol moved to 5Star fromITV2.[11] Continuing the channel's venture into reality based programming,Tallafornia was acquired from Ireland's TV3 and this was soon joined byBar Rescue,World's Worst Tenants andTop 20 Funniest in 2014.[12]
The 5Star schedule included a variety of programming, including the aforementioned reality series, as well as the first-run rights toHelix, the second-run rights to American seriesFalling Skies,Under the Dome andThe Walking Dead, and Australian soap operasHome & Away andNeighbours. Popular documentary series shared with C5 air throughout the daytime and primetime hours, such asThe Gadget Show.
The time-shift version of the channel was shut down on 3 February 2014 to make way for Channel 5 +24.[13] The channel returned later, launching on Freesat on 16 September 2014 and Sky in the UK and Ireland on 4 November 2014, replacingBET +1 on the platform. The addition of the channel in Ireland was an error, thus it was removed on 6 November 2014.
On 11 February 2016, as part of an overall re-branding of Channel 5's networks following their acquisition byViacom, the channel was re-branded as5Star.[14]
5Star was initially positioned as a younger skewing channel (like E4). However, 5Star dropped many of its drama and comedy programs from the schedules and replaced them with blocks ofreality TV programming in September 2021. These included medical shows such asSkin A&E,999: Critical Condition andDon't Tell The Doctor[15] and nights devoted to crime and cleaning showing on other days.
The channel still had several drama shows listed in its schedules for 2021 with imports such asDeparture[16] andWentworth: The Final Sentence[17] broadcast after the watershed and its Australian soaps still broadcast in an hour block from 6 pm (though the 3 pm repeat has been replaced by episodes ofPolice Interceptors fromParamount Network). 5Star also picked up the free-to-air television rights of streaming seriesThe Act (from StarzPlay via Amazon) which increased its viewing figures on 5Star with each episode broadcast,[18][19] andDirty John (also available on Netflix).[20]
Australian soap operaHome and Away has episodes debuting on the channel before being repeated on Channel 5, with other channel premieres including episodes ofKiller at the Crime Scene[21] andThe Nightmare Neighbour Next Door, as well as several romcom films shown at lunchtime. 5Star usually schedules feature films each Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night, with the whole Saturday daytime schedule traditionally given to family films. However, the quality of some of the movies broadcast by 5Star has been picked up byKermode and Mayo's Film Review on BBC Radio 5 Live, who have nominated many titles due to be broadcast on the channel, for their 'TV Movie So Bad it's Bad' feature on the show.[22]
On 20 October 2021, their scheduledLove at Lunchtime TV movie premiere[23][24] slot[25][26] was discontinued and replaced by back-to-back repeats of various emergency services documentaries with episodes 6[27] and 7[27] ofTraffic Cops[28] replacing the already announced premiere ofLove's Last Resort on that date.
Programmes debuting new episodes on the channel in November 2021 includedFilthy House SOS[29][30][31] andOxford Street 24/7,[32][33][34] whileNick Knowles' Better Homes[35] is a new show from the presenter of Channel 5'sBig House Clearout[36] andOur Secret World was a new commission produced by Viacom Studios UK,[37] featuring Babestation stars like Atlanta Moreno and Jess West enjoying their leisure time in a reality TV format. New-to-Freeview episodes of drama seriesThe Act[38][39] (from American streaming serviceHulu), are debuting weekly on 5Star at 10pm on a Thursday night before being repeated late night on 5Select a few days later.[40]
From 8 November 2021, after Ofcom approved an hour-long5 News at 5 on the main channel to fit inEggheads[41] at 6.30pm,[42][43][44] the early evening repeat ofHome and Away[45] moved to 5Star, with the Australian soap now being broadcast in an hour-long slot from 6pm, with the repeat scheduled back-to-back with the 'first look' episode (though the soap went on its regular winter break on Monday 22 November, with the slot being used for repeats ofShoplifters & Scammers: At War with the Law and family films, until a new episode of the soap was broadcast on New Year's Eve).[46][47][48]
From 4 December 2021 to 7 November 2022, 5Star began repeating season 11 of Judge Judy in the mornings, at the same time that season 17 was seen on CBS Reality and, due to a simulcast agreement, nineLocal TV channels in the UK.[49][50][51] A month later, on 4 January 2022,[52] more retro programming from the archives of ViacomCBS appeared on the network, whenZalman King's Red Shoe Diaries (originally broadcast on the AmericanShowtime channel in 1992 and then on Channel 5) started a repeat run in the United Kingdom on 5Star.
The launch of Five Life was at the time ranked as the worst received multichannel launch for a terrestrial broadcaster, only managing to achieve a primetime share of 0.21%.[53]Following the channel's relaunch as Fiver in 2008, the all-day share for the channel has been between 0.5 and 0.6%. The highest-rated series airing on the channel are Home & Away, Neighbours, and the weeknight primetime movie showings. The highest rating for the channel is held byBig Brother: Live from the House, when it received just over one million viewers and an audience share of over five percent in 2013.
^1 Several documentary series shared with Channel 5 air on 5Star. However, the titles that come to 5Star change too sporadically to pinpoint what specifically airs first-run or second-run to the channel.
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