Rob’s Blog

I am at a loss here as to what to focus on in this post to the world, or at least a few friends in Tring

• Channel 5 and why it never really took off
• Mark’s brilliant Australian accent
• Miss Harding Mk 1

Although I don’t really have a lot of time on my hands (German mock oral exam tomorrow and ICT coursework due in on Friday) I will try and get to all 3 as best I can. So, Channel 5 and why it didn’t work.

Those of you who actually managed to get C5 when it first started broadcasting on 30th March 1997 will have noticed a few things. First of all, your video player probably needed retuning by a man in a boiler suit, unless it was quite new. This is due to how video players worked back then and what frequencies they outputted signals to the TV on. This had to be payed for by C5, and it probably cost a lot, which is why their programmes are rubbish. You may also know that you can’t get it on the south coast of England. Why? Well it would annoy the French. That’s it. Five was also the first terrestrial channel to broadcast on satellite and go digital. All they did was fill the spaces not taken up by other channels. Anyway, I digress. Perhaps some of you remember C5’s opening afternoon on that fateful Easter Sunday. All they showed was a single ident with some coloured bars on:

Not really that interesting considering their hadn’t been a channel launch since 1987! Suddenly, 2 hours before their launch a countdown timer appeared on screen, and this was where the problems started. In the background of this countdown was some music. This music however, was to be the downfall of the channel, resulting in it having a measly 4.9% of the viewing public watching it. The song was entitled 1, 2, 3, 4, 5! and was sung by… The Spice Girls. Big mistake. This probably resulted in most people getting the guy that made their TV receive C5, dragging him back into the house and getting him to put it back as it was.

Channel 5 also has plans to launch some new channels, as the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 have all done it (BBC3, BBC4, ITV1 through 4, E4, E4+1 etc, etc…). These will be called five.2 and five.3 as they are really uninventive and can’t come up with anything better. Luckily they don’t yet have DDT licences to broadcast on Freeview or satellite They will probably get the Spice Girls to do the music for the launch of those channels too, as they are even cheaper now that they were before. And so the life cycle goes on, Channel 5 waste loads of money getting more channels, the Spice Girls are kept in business and another few thousand people up and down the country throw their TVs out the window. It’s all that keeps Currys in business, ya know!

I have, in fact run out of time. But Mark, if you read this, I haven’t forgotten to write something about your Australian accent. Just remember, next time let Miss Harding sing the poem, as it will be great for a laugh, and I’m sure my mobile has a sound recorder function

This entry was posted on Monday, March 13th, 2006 at 7:42 pm and is filed under Random. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.