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Channel 5 unveils celeb-laden slate

Newly rebranded UK broadcaster Channel 5 today unveiled its new programming slate: a youth-orientated mix of factual entertainment and celebrity-led documentaries.

The broadcaster has picked up comedian Paul Merton’s Great Escapes from UK prodco Tiger Aspect; and Googlebox and GroupM’s Impossible?, fronted by celebrity psychic Phillip Escoffey.

Also on the slate is lesbian reality series Candy Bar Girls, from Lion TV, which follows a group of young girls working in London’s Candy Bar lesbian pub.

The channel unveiled its 2011 programming agenda today along with a rebrand and new idents across both the terrestrial network and its digital channels Fiver (to become 5*) and Five USA (to become 5USA ). The branding refresh and idents will go live on March 7.

Of the net’s new slate and new direction under Northern & Shell, Channel 5’s head of programming Jeff Ford said: “It’s going to be a fair ride but we are going to succeed because I know we will, because that’s what Channel 5 is all about. We want to tread the line between retro TV and ‘broken Britain,’ to look on the brighter side.”

The channel was sold to UK media group Northern & Shell last year for £103.5m (US$160.2m), after European broadcaster RTL decided to exit the competitive UK market, according to RTL CEO Gerhard Zeiler at the time.

Since that deal the channel has relocated and prepared for today’s relaunch. It is now poised to pick up Endemol’s reality format Big Brother, after rival broadcaster Channel 4 dropped the show last year ending its 10-year reign.

Negotiations for the show reopened last month after a deal between the net and Endemol broke down some months ago, but Ford today declined to comment on its progress.

Channel 5 also said today it had picked up Blink Films’ production Mexican Food Made Simple, presented by MasterChef winner Thomasina Miers; The Restaurant Inspector from indie Fresh One; and Special Edition’s Essex Jungle, which documents the strange animals that inhabit the English county.

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