Institutional Context: Channel 5

Channel 5 is one Britain's newer major Commercial channels in that it was launched in 1997. The channel is currently owned by Viacom, an American media conglomerate. They have the 5th highest audience share in the UK, and it has been that since their launch. Like ITV, Channel 5 has subsidiary channels that broadcast different content to their main. These are 5STAR, 5SPIKE, 5USA, and 5SELECT.

On Channel's Programme Production page, there's one piece of information that serves as an absolute deciding factor for me: they say, and I quote, "We particularly like factual shows – Specialist Factual, Documentaries and Factual Entertainment". They also point out, "We are not really in the market for Comedy or Drama at the moment but that will hopefully change moving forward".

This is the main reason I chose ITV over Channel 5. I want to produce a fictional drama show, and as Channel 5 has made very clear, they are not interested in showing such programmes.

While it's true Channel 5 plans to change their stance on Drama genre programmes in the future, at the present, they are not spending time nor money on it. Even from my analysis of their broadcast schedule- roughly all their TV shows are factual to some extent.

The only exceptions to this are shows like NCIS, which are classed as "imported" programmes, and are not actually created by them; so following this type of show is not on the table for my project. These shows are usually broadcast on their subsidiary chanels afore mentioned, which also broadcast other factual based programmes on their own schedules.

Channel 5 is a great channel with programmes that I often watch, like The Gadget Show, but it is not the channel that fits my concept for the coursework brief.