Channel 4 and 4onDemand became just 4
Now Channel 5 and My5 become just 5
Like Netflix - they want to be one brand everywhere
In a world of Plays Views Now’s and Plusses - Will 10 be the first to drop “10 Play” and become just “10” one brand on all touch points
Australia has higher usage or network streaming apps than US or UK
No. I think you still need to direct people to 10play otherwise they won’t bother looking for it.
So given it’s worked well over here with 9Now, 7Plus and 10Whatever, why change it? Seems to suggest the strategy of stripping back just confuses people.
I know there’s probably research that suggests a unified brand works better on some level, but I’ve never been a fan of it. I still hear plenty of non-TV enthusiasts refer to the ABC’s TV news channel as ABC News 24 or just News 24, seven years after the name was dropped. That to me suggests the 24 branding was really useful to audiences. I think it’s important viewers can distinguish the medium, e.g. News 24 referring to TV, versus the website, ABC News bulletins on radio, the 7pm TV news.
I think it depends entirely on how strong each brand was to begin with. There was nothing wrong with the old 4OD brand - I think changing it to All4 was just corporate vanity. It wasn’t a strong brand, which is why it changed to just ‘Channel 4’. (Personally, I think they missed a trick not calling it 4Play).
With Channel 5, I think one brand makes sense. ‘Demand 5’ and ‘My5’ have never really cut through or resonated, so branding everything as simply 5 is probably a good idea. Whereas with, say, the BBC, iPlayer has been such a strong brand that getting rid of it now would make zero sense.
4play would have been fine but UKTV Play was around at the time.
And that’s the thing - the British streaming market is so crowded. No wonder all these services change their names every five minutes.
I think in Australia, it’s different because it’s a smaller market with fewer players, plus Aussie networks tend to have much stronger brands anyway. They don’t tinker anywhere near as much as the British networks, and it shows. I mean Channel 7 has essentially had the same logo since 2000, and in that time Channel 5 in the UK has had, erm… 5 different logos. ITV has had three different logos in that time, too. I don’t think it shows much confidence in your brand to keep changing it all the time.
Could be another documentary going to Nine in 2025.
…maybe they should stop running shows where someone fixes something…? /s
Ahead of the latest season of Married at First Sight beginning on Channel 4 tonight, it has been reported that one of this year’s cast, Alex Henry, was jailed for abandoning his post in the RAF to appear on the show.
Eden is going free-to-air as U&Eden, as UKTV and Sky renew their partnership:
UKTV’s free-to-air channels U&Dave, U&W, U&DRAMA and U&YESTERDAY will also continue to be available for Sky customers to enjoy for the duration of the deal, as will Eden which joins UKTV’s free-to-air portfolio as U&Eden in the coming weeks.