Pres release: 23 December 2005

Five's soap opera Family Affairs ends in 1 week's time, but that isn't the only change happening. On 31 December Five will introduce a new set of idents based on emotions .

The idents use images inspired by the words live, fast, hope, risk, dare, play, free, rush and life, as well as love.

Each word appears in the familiar location of the Five logo in the onscreen idents, on the left-hand side of the screen in the channel's established typographical style.

The word fast features in a shot of greyhounds racing, rush appears on the ground below a sky diver and live can be traced in the outline of forked lightning.
The word hope shows someone trying to win a game of poker. etc.

At the end of the idents, the words are covered by the familiar Five logo, 

The idents were created by branding agency BB/Saunders and shot in Prague and the UK through Hungry Man, with post production by Finish and 3D work by Realise. Samuel Christopher directed, with Matt Jones producing. The music is by Tanuki 8.

The rebranding comes as a result of restructuring at MTV Networks, the company that owns Five."

The new idents are scheduled to premiere before the premiere of Prison Break on 31 December at 10pm, that way it's ready for New Year's Eve.

And don't forget to tune in on New Years Day as Five has a whole range of entertainment for the whole family! which includes :

Several family films including: The Emoji Movie, The Time Team (also known as KikoRiki: Deja Vu, which also aired on Five during Christmas 2004 and airs on Christmas Day this year, It also aired on NickToons during Summer 2005 ) and Pokemon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea. 

Five are also going to invest more money in programming starting in 2006 as they adjust to life without their flagship soap .

A five spokesperson said "We are introducing our new look on New Years Eve to avoid interfering with our flagship show. After careful consideration we decided that it was in our best interests to bid farewell to Family Affairs and continue to invest in more imaginative and exciting programmes, We at Five will miss the programe, The new look is premiering before Prison Break to avoid interfering with both the last episode of Family Affairs as well as our big family entertainment extravaganza on New Years Day. We believe Prison Break is an awesome USA drama and we hope you tune in to watch it, as we hope it will fill the void left in your hearts after we say goodbye to Family Affairs".

This year's christmas idents are the same as the ones used last year, just without the message advising you to donate to charity.

The New Years event was teased on 25 December with "Merry Christmas from us all at Five, but before that let's not forget that Family Film Day happens on January 1st, with some of the best family films available, We hope you will agree it's all very exciting stuff, After all, It's not every day that Five celebrates new year in style, Now let's have a fabulous Christmas with you and thank you for being with us on our journey, Now zipping through time and space, here's The Time Team"
The changes are all based around incorporating fresh, new idents to reflect the channel's personality 

Update: 2nd January 2006, As expected, the new look debuted before Prison Break at 22:00 on the 31st December. that way it wouldn't interfere with the last ever episode of Family Affairs and the slew of children's films on New Year's Day

It was originally planned to unveil the new look on New Years Day, but Five's parent company MTV Networks chose to have it premiere earlier to time it with the debut of Prison Break. as well as have it not interfere with the family entertainment on New Years Day.

The launch contains a advert for Five's drama, a compilation of the new idents and then the first new ident. The drama advert also aired after the final episode of Family Affairs.

Five mentioned the new look during the family fun, with an announcement saying "If your kids are confused as to why there is a man skydiving let us explain, Last night Five introduced a brand new look for 2006, Now back to our family film day, Get ready to cause mayhem across the past, present and future with these very cute animals in The Time Team"


There was also a more vague announcement before Emoji Movie which said "It's a all new- all different Five this New Year, as we celebrate the new year in style, Now time for the secret world inside your phone here's what we'd like you to know in The Emoji Movie"

It's worth noting that Five is also changing their on demand service from DemandFive to My5 starting 23th of January 2006.

There was also an announcement saying "The end of an era now on Five, Starting on the 30th March 1997 and now after nearly 9 years, the remains of a houseboat and thousands of episodes later, It's time to say farewell to Family Affairs", which then quotes "So we bid farewell to our show, Although the show has finished the website will remain online well into the new year.  with chance to win things from the show, Just go to five.tv/familyaffairs We would like to thank the cast and crew, You were awesome you will be missed, Tomorrow, prepare to break out of jail with Prison Break which premieres tomorrow at 22:00 on Five, And don't forget on January 1st we have treats lined up for the entire family, featuring The Emoji Movie, Pokemon Ranger and The Temple Of The Sea and The Time Team". There was then an ad for Five's 10pm dramas followed by an ad for Family Film Day (the flagship film included in the trailer was The Time Team).  Five then became dependent on random showings of popular films throughout the month.

The last episode of Family Affairs had several adverts for Prison Break with messages such as "My brother is innocent" Prison Break is about a man trying to save his brother who is about to be executed for a crime he didn't commit.

Unlike Family Affairs, the show is a popular American crime drama, whereas Family Affairs is a British soap opera.
Edit: 19 February 2006 
It appears that Five have edited the idents to once again include the Five logo, The idents still feature their respective word, but the Five logo animates in after about 3 seconds,


Edit: 04 May 2007

Prison Break did exceptional in the ratings and replaced CSI as Five's most watched show, until it was passed in May by Breaking Bad. The show ended on 25 May 2006. after which Five had no popular show to show and entered a state of limbo in which during the summer period they constantly played kids films (the most played one being Time Team).
The limbo period ended in August when new episodes of Breaking Bad returned.

Whenever "drama season" is over, Five has to take measures to increase the ratings, which means spamming showings of The Time Team.

A five spokesperson said "The reason we showed this film constantly in 2006 is because kids always watch it when it's on and because we don't have any popular shows during the summer period, All our dramas are on hiatus during Summer and we no longer have Family Affairs, That's why our summer and christmas schedules are so dependent on The Time Team, even though it's a kids film as opposed to the general audience Five normally targets, This problem should be resolved when we get Neighbors in 2007 to replace Family Affairs as our soap, so that when drama season ends we don't have to overshow The Time Team".

So the reason is that during Summer five do not have any new episodes of any shows to show, so the only way to increase ratings is by playing kids films (the Pokemon films and Pixar ones don't get as much views as The Time Team).

The problem has been resolved with new soap Neighbors which is set in Australia .

Five gets a new look and logo in July 2007, so the New Year 2006 ident era will be remembered for the lack of dramas during the summer period and the loss of a show that got 5 million viewers (Family Affairs) this led to Five having no choice but to cash in on the kids audience with The Time Team, a problem which lasted throughout 2006 and finally ended in May 2007 with the premiere of Aussie soap Neighbors, which premiered at Family Affairs's old timeslot  

Press release: Loss of popular soap drives Five to breaking point.

Drama season ended on 25 May 2006, leading to Prison Break, House, CSI Miami and Breaking Bad going on summer break. normally during this time, Five would still get views through soap Family Affairs, but that show ended in late 2005. Most viewers switch off when Five has no anchor show to show, Five's solution: Focus on kids who have left school for the summer, This has resulted in constant showings of the animated kids movie The Time Team. This wouldn't be happening if Five still made new episodes of Family Affairs. 

A five spokesperson said "At the moment there are no new episodes of any USA drama, There won't be until September, At the moment we do not have any soap, however we are looking in to acquiring Neighbors and Home and Away, Until then our only choice is to constantly show The Time Team".

The problem has been resolved with Neighbors and Home and Away, which both premiered in May of 2007, (Time Team still pops up during weekends, and will obviously still play during the winter period)

As of 9th July 2007, the current idents have been handed a stay of execution, which means Five will continue to use them until further notice, Neighbors and Home and Away perform well but Five has to account for the viewers unable to receive kids channels due to the fact that over 50% of viewers still use analogue, so the schedule for July 2007 once again is dependent on The Time Team and Neighbors.

The Time Team follows hyperactive rabbit Krash as he calls the DejaVu agency to organize a special birthday party for his friend Barry, This results in a temporal clone of Krash appearing and the gang are trapped in different time zones, Krash's clone becomes more serious, in contrast to the usually bubbly and playful Krash. Krash and his clone must round up the gang by travelling to different time periods while on the run from an evil mole who wants to erase the gang so he can become "Employee of the Month" at DejaVu. It first aired on Five over the Christmas period in 2004, It was sporadically shown during 2005, shown continuously during late 2005 (when Five rebranded) and practically ad-infinitum during summer 2006 (if you don't count Milkshake, Five News and The Wright Stuff) The film has proven to be very popular and is well received by all ages, but that doesn't justify it being constantly shown whenever Five can't be bothered to show something else, There are also 2 other films using the same characters "Team Invincible" and "Super Furry Animals" that barely air on the channel,

Five have delayed their new look indefinitely to avoid interfering with The Wright Stuff becoming Jeremy Vine. 

It appears that there is now a special ident for The Time Team, It shows clips from the film, along with the Five jingle playing in the background !!!. The special word for this ident is "time", Nice to see that Five have made 1 more ident for this set before the inevitable rebrand.

Any chance of getting a farewell ident for Wright Stuff?

A Five spokesperson said "Wright Stuff is not ending, it's just becoming some other service, we hope you will watch Jeremy Vine. Our rebrand has been delayed indefinitely, You may have noticed we have made a special ident for Jeremy Vine, the word here is "vine", There is also a special ident for The Time Team, Both of which use our ident's signature tune. We hope you enjoy Jeremy Vine as much as you enjoyed The Wright Stuff."

Is it really that hard to think up a farewell ident for Matthew Wright?

A Five spokesperson said "We are focusing on Jeremy Vine and The Time Team, We think The Wright Stuff and The Jeremy Vine Show are the same show, just Jeremy Vine is taking over from Matthew Wright, We hope you enjoy Jeremy Vine, The Time Team is our most popular family film, so we have given it a special ident, We used this ident just after Milkshake today and we used it before the last ever episode of The Wright Stuff, At the end of Wright Stuff today you might have seen the wright stuff logo turn into the one for Jeremy Vine, There was also a special end credits advert for The Time Team.
There was an announcement that said "And to Matthew Wright, a huge thank you from all of us here at Five for entertaining us for 7 years, don't worry, Jeremy Vine is keeping the seat warm. We will be back for a special final programme to look back at Matthew Wright tomorrow, and the post Wright era begins on the 11th on Five, Now though to our next focus, what happens when you botch your friend's birthday so badly that your friends are scattered across time and space, That's our beloved family film, The Time Team, and you can see that today at 4pm" Yes, it is true, Matthew has no next project yet.
I am glad to see Matthew Wright getting the send off he deserves, 

EDIT: 30 July 2007, The new look has been completely scrapped after the poor results in ratings. It looks like the 2005 idents are staying. also, Five 's Head of Programmes has said: “Matthew Wright has abandoned Five to work for Absolute Radio, We here at Five have replaced him with Jeremy Vine, This summer will be a blast on Five with, The Vine Stuff (formerly known as The Wright Stuff), Home and Away,  Celebrity Juice and Five's most successful family film The Time Team, followed by Neighbors, Drama returns on Saturday Nights with Breaking Bad, NCIS and a revamp of CSI:Miami, We hope you'll agree that Five is the place to be, with new dramas, a new host, and the only place you can see cute animals travelling through time, The Time Team, For more info go to five.tv/thetimeteam

The website states this: "When all his birthday plans crash before his eyes, Krash decides to make Barry's birthday unforgettable by organizing a time travel trip from the world famous Deja Vu agency, but things go wrong when the gang get scattered across time and space, and Krash, with the help of his temporal clone, must race against time to find them before his friends get erased from history, Watch The Time Team this summer on Five." Write a follow up blog post in December 2007 where Neighbors comes to an end, and the Writer's Strike hits the big dramas, Five's solution is obvious