Five Life hasn't been attracting enough men or young people, apparently, so is the new name Fiver the right brand to make the channel "younger, faster and louder"?
Digital channels Five Life and Five US have been a real audience fillip for Channel Five but it has now decided that Five Life needs to become the "younger brother or sister" to the main channel to fulfil its potential.
Hannah Barnes, the director of programmes for the two digital channels, has been labouring for a year on the re-launch and said that research showed that the word Life - as in Five Life - "might be a barrier to men".
"The name Fiver has great attitude, it is clear, it feels young, it already exists as a word in the vernacular, is down to earth and perfectly fits with Channel Five," explains Barnes.
With shows such as Neighbours and Home & Away already attracting decent numbers of 16 to 34s introducing Fiver was a way to "build on that".
To this end its visual identity will see a cheeky "unpredictable" cursor write out, in one example, the name David next to a picture of the well-dressed footballer it "accidentally" briefly types Dopey first. Wacky, naughty cursor.
The Guardian has a built in target market of sports lovers that sign up for the Fiver daily email that may be ripe for, er, multi-platform conversion.
As one colleague put it, with tongue firmly in cheek, maybe Channel could go all Dave in the pursuit of men and consider launching Five-O?
