2006-08: Five Life Five Life was intended to be a female-oriented channel emphasising lifestyle programming. Channel 5 announced that programming on launch would include
The Ellen DeGeneres Show,
Love My Way,
Windfall, ''
Angela's Eyes, and a weekday double-bill of the chat show Trisha Goddard''. On 16 October 2006, a day following the channel's launch, Australian soap opera
Home and Away began airing from episode 4212 (Season 19, Episode 112). New episodes were shown Monday to Friday in a 'First Look' screening with episodes following the Channel 5 airing. Repeats of popular female-skewing dramas, both nationally and internationally produced, were soon acquired. A time-shift version was launched following the channel's launch in summer 2007.
2008-11: Fiver On 28 April 2008, Five Life was relaunched as Fiver, with a new branding strategy aimed at a younger audience. The rebranding introduced a "younger, faster, louder" concept to compete with Sky Living. The channel adopted a unique on-air presentation featuring a "cursor" motif, which typed out words related to programs and current events.
2011–16: 5Star In 2011, the channel was re-launched as 5Star (stylized as
5★ or
5*, pronounced "Five Star"). The new brand focused on a "fun-loving" concept, with initial acquisitions including
$#*! My Dad Says,
Better with You and
Parenthood. On 11 April 2011, 5Star reduced its broadcast hours to 13:00 to 00:00, replacing the hours withdrawn with more teleshopping. When some of these new programmes failed to impact the channel's ratings, several were dropped and replaced by new locally-produced and acquired programming. These included the American series
8 Simple Rules,
10 Things I Hate About You,
Alphas and
The Lying Game. In 2012, in consort with C5's acquisition of the series, 5Star began airing the
Big Brother companion show
Big Brother: Live from the House, which aired 60 minutes of live feed following every eviction show. In 2013, after
Live from the House set ratings records for the channel, the programme was expanded to two hours nightly. However, ratings were at a share below that of the channel's average, with just 70,000 watching the first live feeds. Subsequently, the live feeds were shut down and the spin-off show last aired in June 2013. Also in 2013,
American Idol moved to 5Star from
ITV2. Continuing the channel's venture into reality based programming,
Tallafornia was acquired from Ireland's TV3 and this was soon joined by
Bar Rescue, ''
World's Worst Tenants and Top 20 Funniest'' in 2014. The 5Star schedule included a variety of programming, including the aforementioned reality series, as well as the first-run rights to
Helix, the second-run rights to American series
Falling Skies,
Under the Dome and
The Walking Dead, and Australian soap operas
Home & Away and
Neighbours. Popular documentary series shared with C5 air throughout the daytime and primetime hours, such as
The Gadget Show. The time-shift version of the channel was shut down on 3 February 2014 to make way for Channel 5 +24. The channel returned later, launching on Freesat on 16 September 2014 and Sky in the UK and Ireland on 4 November 2014, replacing
BET +1 on the platform. The addition of the channel in Ireland was an error; thus, it was removed on 6 November 2014. On 11 February 2016, as part of an overall re-branding of Channel 5's networks following their acquisition by
Viacom, the channel was re-branded as
5Star.
2016 to date: 5Star 5Star was initially positioned as a younger skewing channel (like E4). However, 5Star dropped many of its drama and comedy programs from the schedules and replaced them with blocks of
reality TV programming in September 2021. These included medical shows such as
Skin A&E,
999: Critical Condition and ''Don't Tell The Doctor'' and nights devoted to crime and cleaning showing on other days. The channel still had several drama shows listed in its schedules for 2021 with imports such as
Departure and
Wentworth: The Final Sentence broadcast after the watershed and its Australian soaps still broadcast in an hour block from 6pm (though the 3pm repeat has been replaced by episodes of
Police Interceptors from
Paramount Network). 5Star also picked up the free-to-air television rights of streaming series
The Act (from StarzPlay via Amazon) which increased its viewing figures on 5Star with each episode broadcast, and
Dirty John (also available on Netflix). Australian soap opera
Home and Away has episodes debuting on the channel before being repeated on Channel 5, with other channel premieres including episodes of
Killer at the Crime Scene and
The Nightmare Neighbour Next Door, as well as several romcom films shown at lunchtime. 5Star usually schedules feature films each Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night, with the whole Saturday daytime schedule traditionally given to family films. However, the quality of some of the movies broadcast by 5Star has been picked up by ''Kermode and Mayo's Film Review'' on BBC Radio 5 Live, who have nominated many titles due to be broadcast on the channel, for their 'TV Movie So Bad it's Bad' feature on the show. On 20 October 2021, their scheduled
Love at Lunchtime TV movie premiere slot was discontinued and replaced by back-to-back repeats of various emergency services documentaries with episodes 6 and 7 of
Traffic Cops replacing the already announced premiere of ''Love's Last Resort'' on that date. Programmes debuting new episodes on the channel in November 2021 included
Filthy House SOS and
Oxford Street 24/7, while ''Nick Knowles' Better Homes'' is a new show from the presenter of Channel 5's
Big House Clearout and
Our Secret World was a new commission produced by Viacom Studios UK, featuring Babestation stars like Atlanta Moreno and Jess West enjoying their leisure time in a reality TV format. New-to-Freeview episodes of drama series
The Act (from American streaming service
Hulu), are debuting weekly on 5Star at 10pm on a Thursday night before being repeated late night on 5Select a few days later. From 8 November 2021, after Ofcom approved an hour-long
5 News at 5 on the main channel to fit in
Eggheads at 6.30pm, the early evening repeat of
Home and Away moved to 5Star, with the Australian soap now being broadcast in an hour-long slot from 6pm, with the repeat scheduled back-to-back with the 'first look' episode (though the soap went on its regular winter break on Monday 22 November, with the slot being used for repeats of
Shoplifters & Scammers: At War with the Law and family films, until a new episode of the soap was broadcast on New Year's Eve). From 4 December 2021 to 7 November 2022, 5Star began repeating season 11 of
Judge Judy in the mornings, at the same time that season 17 was seen on CBS Reality and, due to a simulcast agreement, nine
Local TV channels in the UK. A month later, on 4January 2022, more retro programming from the archives of ViacomCBS appeared on the network, when ''
Zalman King's Red Shoe Diaries'' (originally broadcast on the American
Showtime channel in 1992 and then on Channel 5) started a repeat run in the United Kingdom on 5Star. ==Availability==