Channel 5

So called? So the BBC and ITV aren't better resourced channels than C5, which despite being part of Viacom is still a minnow of the five main PSBs.

C5 have continually attempted poor daytime formats from The Vanessa Show to Terry and Gaby. Bar The Wright Stuff which is almost as old as the channel itself, they haven't made any inroads into the saturated daytime market dominated by the BBC and ITV. C4 have had some hit and misses.

They even got Trisha after ITV let her go and was trounced by the juggernaut that is Jeremy Kyle.

And initially wasn't it Trisha repeats that ITV put up against her new series.

Struggle now really to see the point of C5 and that few years delay to launch it probably really cost it long term as it didn't really get chance to bed in before digital TV took off. I don't think we'd see anything like the campaign to save BBC3 should C5 ever be under threat and personally I see the likes of BBC3, ITV4, E4 and Dave as much more important to UK television.

C5 reminds me of the railways, new owners, but the same people in charge. Alas the same type of commissioning as seen during the Northern & Shell era such as the poverty porn docs. The new Saturday show seems reminiscent of the dodgy attempts of a daytime format during the RTL era.

I'll give them credit for some of the acquisitions such as Wentworth (already watched on Netflix Canada during the summer) and Gotham, yet it still feels tacky overall.

At least all those programmes of people on benefits seems to have had its day.

Channel 5 have always seemed like they're stuck in a vicious circle. They don't get big enough audiences for anything they create themselves, so they buy successful shows from other channels. But the previously successful formats they acquire just don't seem to get the big audiences they expect them to get.

They could stop broadcasting for a week and people would barely notice.

Main problem has always been they were dogged by reception issues, crammed into a portion of the spectrum that generated interference with video recorders on their default tuners, plus they only had two thirds of the available audience because there were (and probably still are) great chunks that couldn't receive a signal.

Of course its downmarket feel in its launch years (the infamous slogan Five: Football, Films & F*cking) probably didn't help matters, and it's stuck with them ever since. Of course since 1997 the audience has diversified and the multi-channel era of hundreds of channels has just sucked the audience share out of them.

Don't be daft - there is one on Monday. They've given up coming up with names now too - it's just called "Benefits", though the programme information makes me laugh. It's shows like this which are stigmatising and victimising people on benefits in the first place.

I think the "episode name" has been split from the programme name in error, as often happens in DigiGuide.

Yep, always felt Channel 5 was such a wasted opportunity. You think about all that effort to launch the damn thing…

I did think that myself too but checked the C5 website and they list it as "Benefits" too.

I'm really struggling now to think of a single show of their own we can say C5 have given to UK television.

C5 were also late to the game with multi-channel spin-offs, when ITV and C4 already had ITV2 and E4 attracting younger audiences, Five under RTL came up with Five Life, a female skewed channel and Five USA.

Out of the current three spin-off channels (excluding 5+24), there's 5* which has to be the worst name for a spin-off and Spike which is probably the most targeted of them, but is a Viacom brand rather than an in-house creation.

Channel 5 really should have been the place for more Local TV. Thames TV even bid to run Channel 5 with Local opt-outs. This sort of set up (with Thames or not...) would surely have been far better than the Local TV set up we now have? A unique selling point, something which the channel struggles with at present (while maybe still being made cheaper than the BBC/ITV's Regional efforts?).

As LondonLite said they were far too late to the multi-channel era too...I'm shocked the Channel is still around to be honest.