The Sunday Times May 29, 2022 9
NEWS
Anneka Rice and
All Creatures
Great and Small
are part of the
new-look channelGoss was reluctant to
sell a Cartier PanthereNo Big Brother, no bother. How
Channel 5 won over the oldies
Ben Frow, the boss of Channel 5, says he
knows exactly how he will be remem-
bered — as the man who killed off Neigh-
bours and Big Brother.
Last week, though, he chased a more
Lycra-based legacy, bringing back Chal-
lenge Anneka, the show first broadcast on
the BBC more than 30 years ago in which
Anneka Rice solved tasks for communi-
ties with the help of a giant mobile phone
and Dave “the soundman” Chapman.
Frow’s promise to the show’s fans is that
this will not be a “reinvention for the digi-
tal generation”, but will stay true to the
original.
Its revival is indicative of Channel 5’s
ambition to become Middle England’s
favourite broadcaster and prove that, in
the era of the streaming giants, terrestrial
television is not yet dead.
Ratings rose during lockdown with
Channel 5 particularly attracting older
audiences outside London.
According to the media research com-
pany Enders Analysis, Britons watched
on average 8.1 minutes of the channel a
day in 2021, compared with 7.9 minutes
in 2018. “That might not sound like a mas-
sive shift, but the whole industry has
dropped about 10 per cent,” said Tom
Harrington, head of television at Enders.
Since he returned to the business in
2013, Frow has stripped out the filth.
Gone, too, is the excess of American
imports, replaced by atmospheric British
dramas such as Dalgliesh, The Drowning
and Sheridan Smith’s The Teacher, fami-
ly-friendly hits such as All Creatures Great
Rosamund Urwin Media Editor
By shunning youth and plying Middle England with Palin, Portillo and detective dramas, the broadcaster’s average viewer age is now 58
approach comes at a cost, though: young
audiences. Its average age of viewer is ris-
ing faster than any other channel and is
now 58 (it was only 50 in 2016). For
younger audiences, its parent company’s
streaming service, Paramount Plus, will
launch in the UK next month.
“Sacrificing younger viewers for older
is one of the major reasons for Channel
5’s success — they’re avoiding a demo-
graphic that is rapidly lowering its
engagement with TV,” Harrington says.
“The question is how sustainable is that?”
With Big Brother gone and Neighbours
finishing, Channel 5 has lost the two
shows that brought in the highest num-
ber of viewers aged 16 to 34. More than
80 per cent of the Neighbours audience
watched live. Neighbours is set to finish
on August 1 with an ending, Frow prom-
ises, that will be “spectacular”.
Although he is sad to lose the ratings,
he said cutting Big Brother was a moment
of liberation, allowing Channel 5 to claim
its own identity, and that axing Neigh-
bours was purely a business decision. Big
Brother reportedly cost Channel 5
£40 million annually, and Neighbours
cost about £20 million — in total more
than a quarter of the main channel’s
annual content spend.
Frow, a Buddhist, believes in “the
power of the universe” when it comes to
TV. He initially turned down remaking All
Creatures Great and Small, fearing the
original series was iconic. Two weeks
later, he received an email from Sir Colin
Callender, the chief executive of Play-
ground Entertainment, about a remake.
“He said the BBC would only do a pilot —would you be interested in a full series? I
thought, ‘The universe has spoken.’”
For Challenge Anneka, Frow had a
matchmaker: the BBC’s media editor,
Amol Rajan, who texted Frow after meet-
ing Rice, 63, saying that the two should
speak. Frow found himself in awe of her
“energy and heart”, and calls her “the
queen of community transformation”.
He added: “As we move into some very
challenging economic times for this
country, was there ever a better time to
bring back somebody who can transform
people’s lives for good?”
Channel 5 is also riding high after
poaching Dan Walker from BBC Breakfast
last month to front its news bulletin.
Frow enticed Walker with the vision of
making 5 News his own, and will present
his first show on June 6. “Dan was com-
pletely up for it and within 48 hours [of
meeting] we had a deal,” Frow added.
He is equally proud that Palin is set to
present a new travel programme focus-
ing on Iraq, following his 2018 documen-
tary about North Korea. “Who would
have thought Channel 5, Michael Palin
and Iraq would be in the same sentence
six years ago?” he said. “He is the epitome
of the journey that we have been on.”
Channel 5’s success has been noted by
Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary,
who called the channel the “levelling-up
broadcaster” in parliament for its
strength in the regions. Frow calls him-
self “a huge fan” of Dorries, and even
read one of her novels, The Four Streets,
before he met her. So would he ever
adapt one of her books for Channel 5?
“Never say never!” he smiles.and Small and documentaries fronted by
Michaels Palin and Portillo. It is a long
way from the downmarket reputation of
its early years, summarised by the former
director of programmes Dawn Airey as
“films, football and f***ing”.
The strategy is working. While the BBC
faces further cuts — last week, it
announced plans to stop airing CBBC and
BBC4 as traditional broadcast channels —
and the government pushes Channel 4
towards privatisation, the picture looks
much rosier over at Channel 5.
The channel, which turned 25 in
March, was bought by Paramount Global,
then called Viacom CBS, from Richard
Desmond’s Northern & Shell in 2014.
Some industry watchers expected it to
become a dumping ground for US con-
tent; instead there is now a much heavier
focus on regional programming.
Frow, 60, who was promoted to be chief
content officer for Paramount in the UK
last year, says Channel 5’s “unique position
in the broadcasting ecosystem” is paying
off. “We’re non-metropolitan, not snooty
or elitist,” he said. “We have a strong
regional streak — grounded and unpreten-
tious. We’re not too cool for school and we
don’t just want young [viewers].”
The ethos is simple: “If the audience
likes it, I’ll give them more; if the audi-
ence doesn’t like it, that programme will
disappear.”
This results in cyclical trends: Tudor
programmes and Yorkshire-based shows
are on the retreat, while documentaries
focusing on recent history such as Cher-
nobyl and the Great Smog of 1952 are in
vogue. Harrington says Channel 5’sever sold was a one-of-a-kind
stainless steel Patek Philippe
Grandmaster Chime, which
fetched 31 million Swiss
francs (£25.6 million) at
Christie’s in Geneva in 2019.
For Goss, turning a profit is
a bonus. “You can make a
tremendous return on fine
watches in the secondary
market. You can get three or
four, or maybe five, times
what you paid for them, and
they’re something you can
enjoy too,” he said.
In the early 1990s, after
Bros had broken up following
mismanagement, Goss faced
bankruptcy. He settled his
debts by selling his watchesWhy it could be time to cash in if you own a luxury wristwatch
Sir Tom Jones once tried to
count how many watches he
owned but had to give up. “I
have a weakness for
watches,” he told GQ. “I have
to stop myself buying more.”
It would have been better if
he had not resisted.
Buying watches is an
increasingly lucrative hobby.
While the FTSE 100 rose by
25 per cent between
December 2010 and the end
of last year, the value of the
watch market surged by 119
per cent, according to Art
Market Research.
Matt Goss, who with his
twin brother Luke shot to
prominence as Bros with
their 1987 single When Will I
Be Famous?, says his
childhood love of watches
“kept him alive” as he faced
bankruptcy and that his
collection, including sought-
after Patek Philippes, is
soaring in value.
Goss, 53, says his collection
of watches has “outgunned”
his portfolio of stocks in the
past couple of years. “I’ve
loved watches since I was a
kid. I’ve got 11 at the moment,
and they’re all six-figure
watches,” he tells the Fame &
Fortune column in the MoneyLiam Kelly and
Samantha Rea
Philippe models can be as
long as ten years, with Brad
Pitt, Ed Sheeran and Victoria
Beckham among known
owners.
“You get a lot of rich
people desiring to have the
best, most classic, most
interesting watch on their
wrist that everybody else
doesn’t have,” said Jonathan
Darracott, global head of
watches at the auction house
Bonhams. “It’s not what it is.
It’s what it transfers to the
owner. The emotive value of
wearing it or knowing that
you have it is really what
drives the market.”
The most expensive watch£30,000, but he sold it to a
friend for £10,000 because he
did not want “the public
humiliation of selling a
watch”.
As well as collecting
watches again for himself,
Goss gives them as gifts
and gave his twin a
solid gold Rolex GMT
with a green face to
celebrate their 50th
birthday.
There are downsides
to owning such
conspicuous signs of
wealth. Last month the
boxer Amir Khan was
robbed with his wife,
Faryal, at gunpoint in eastLondon for his £70,
custom-made Franck Muller
watch.
Mikael Wallhagen,
Sotheby’s European head of
watches, said the market has
yet to peak and demand for
pristine vintage timepieces
continues to grow. “If you’re
looking at these unique items
in perfect condition, that’s
not even a watch any more.
That’s a work of art. A watch
that costs $1 million today can
definitely cost $5 million in
ten years.”
@IAmLiamKellyI earned £2.5m in just three
days, Money, page 16section today. “My Pateks are
going through the roof. My
most expensive one is worth
£250,000, but I bought it for
half that a year ago.”
When the pandemic
started, the market boomed
as locked-down enthusiasts
sought Rolexes, Patek
Philippes and Audemars
Piguets. Even with the lifting
of restrictions, the
momentum has not stopped.
The appeal of watches lies
not in what they are made
from, how water resistant
they are or even how
accurately they tell the time
but a sense of status. The
waiting list for new Patekover the course of more than
a year. “My watches kept me
alive,” said Goss. “I had 30,
and they would now be
worth ten times what I
sold them for.”
The last watch he held
onto was a solid gold
Cartier Panthere given
to him by John Reid,
Elton John’s manager
and former lover.
“Elton was always
lovely to us, so it held
such value for me,
emotionally,” Goss said. It
was probably worthehumi
watch
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Faryaeld. It
Black smoke over
Torquay as
superyacht sinks
Environment Agency will
now work to recover it from
under the water. The
Environment Agency (EA)
said in a tweet that the focus
was “now on pollution”
because of the amount of
diesel on board.
In an updated statement
Devon and Cornwall Police
said: “Police were called at
12.10pm today to Princess
Pier in Torquay following
reports of a fire on a yacht in
the marina.
“Beaches were closed and
the harbour was evacuated.“The boat is believed to
have caught alight and broke
away from the mooring but
was later secured by the Fire
Service near the pier. There
are no reported injuries.”
An EA spokesman told the
BBC that the response to the
pollution threat would be led
by the harbour master while
the agency would provide
“advice and guidance on
bathing water quality”.
The yacht is reportedly
called Rendezvous.
According to the website
Super Yacht Times, it wasbuilt in 2010 and has four
guest cabins and two crew
cabins. It is unclear who
owns it.
One eyewitness, Grace
Kedzior-Macdonough, 20, a
student from Plymouth who
took dramatic photographs of
the blaze, said the fire started
at about midday.
She said: “It wasn’t noisy at
first — it was just black smoke.
Then you started to hear
explosions. We were guessing
it was gas. It was like loud
popping. There were quite a
few bangs going off.“People seemed quite
terrified, especially the
people on the boats
neighbouring, because they
couldn’t move. The fire was
spitting into the water and
stuff was spitting out, so
obviously they didn’t want
theirs to catch fire either.”
Another eyewitness,
Georgina Cleasby, told ITV
News that she saw the fire
while she was cycling past the
harbour on her way home.
She said: “We stood and
watched for around ten
minutes until the smokebegan to affect our chests.
There was so much smoke it
obscured the sun.”
Cat Jones, a Liberal
Democrat member of Torbay
council who witnessed the
blaze, tweeted: “It’s like a
fireball!”
Devon and Somerset Fire
and Rescue Service said that
it had received 47 calls about
the fire.
All road closures and the
majority of cordons around
the marina have now been
lifted and the public are able
to access the area again.A luxury 85ft superyacht
thought to be worth
£6 million burst into a ball of
flames and sank in Torquay
marina yesterday.
Five fire engines attended
the blaze. Police confirmed
that the yacht, which was
carrying an estimated 8,
litres of diesel, sank shortly
before 4pm.
They are currently treating
the cause of the fire as
“unexplained” and the
harbour master andHugo DanielThe 85ft yacht, thought to be called
Rendezvous, had an estimated 8,
litres of diesel on board when it burst into
flames and sank in Torquay marina
yesterday. It is unclear who owns itJAMES WATSON/DEVONLIVE/BPM; IAN WILLIAMS/SWNS