“We’re not YouTube. Honest.” 

3 October 2008 tbs.pm/948

‘Hot dog’ ad offers taste of new-look Channel Five

Poor Channel Five is only really watched for a bit of sport, CSI, Neighbours and perhaps a bit of cheap TV if you’re feeling desperate, so for Five’s new identity they wisely opted to plug a whole host of programming on other channels hoping that nobody will notice how weak their own offerings are.

Anyway, the all-important Five relaunch kicks off next Monday with a shiny Eurotunnel new logo, and this time they’ve opted to replace traditional idents with “content bursts” and “brand bursts”, which in “meeja-speak” implies that they hope to “get down with the kids” (yawn) by trying to replicate the good bits of YouTube.

(Compare and contrast this with ITV’s Michael Grade who would rather see YouTube killed off in a hail of lawsuits. In his dreams.)

And presumably Five will be using the same clips on the ‘Tube (or alternatively hoping that they will be uploaded by other people as ‘virals’) in a perhaps vain attempt to generate a bit of excitement for their ‘content’ in the process. (Compare this approach to BBC Three’s pathetic try at “user-generated excrement content”.)

We can only hope that unlike BBC Three, YouTube Five has the right formula this time.

A member of the Transdiffusion Broadcasting System
Liverpool, Thursday 28 March 2024