Five seeking exclusivity for acquisitions

Five is changing its strategy on acquisitions and co-productions as it prepares to enter the multichannel market, Broadcast reported this week.

The broadcaster has traditionally picked up only the terrestrial rights to air key shows, leaving the multichannel rights open to other broadcasters. Flextech's Living TV holds the rights to many, including the entire CSI franchise and Grey's Anatomy, while Hallmark has House and Law & Order.

From now on, Five will seek exclusive deals only in order to air acquisitions on its forthcoming two new channels, codenamed Five.2 and Five.3. A similar strategy has worked well for Channel 4 with E4 and More4.

Five is also abandoning co-production deals with UK multichannels, such as Human Computer with Discovery, for the same reason. It is unknown whether its comedy joint-venture with Paramount will be affected by the new policy.