Where did it go wrong for Channel Five and Dan Chambers?

Rightly or wrongly, Channel Five still seems to be stuck in that "no man's land" between the average satellite/cable channel and the long-established four terrestrial channels; it has the audience potential of the 'big four' yet its programming budget is more on a par with Sky One. It seems that Channel Five now needs fresh ideas and the money to make them happen.

Channel Five's audience growth came when coverage and programme quality simultaneously improved over the last ten or so years; the uptake of digital TV solved the patchy analogue coverage problem and programming quality went upmarket even to the extent of showing peaktime highbrow arts offerings (since it wasn't directly competing with BBC One and ITV1).

And talking of ITV1, its decline is levelling off because most viewers now only tune in for soaps, cosy drama and the X-Factor, which in turn draws attention to Five's lack of anything beyond a handful of American imports for drawing a mass market audience. Five's owners RTL are growing impatient with this state of affairs hence the management changes.

Channel Five could have capitalised more on ITV1's decline but was being held back by a lack of investment combined with an unusually competitive Channel 4. Plus Five US and Five Life really ought to have launched at least a year earlier (and arguably Five needs a 'Five 2' more than yet another female-oriented lifestyle channel).

Still at least there's now some breathing space for Channel Five, with its two new channels delivering respectable multichannel audience figures along with having a new director of programmes (even if that wasn't the problem) and the fact that ITV still hasn't woken up yet (and may not do so for some time).