Customer Services Blog

Hi all,

Exciting news for fans of The Mentalist. We can confirm that Series 2 returns to Five on Friday 19th February at 9pm, kicking off with Redemption, a tale of a woman accused of stealing $1 million from her workplace who turns up dead and Jane has to employ some dubious tactics in his own innimitable fashion. If you can't make the Friday screening, we are hoping to run repeats. Keep a close eye on the listings for these,as they have not been confirmed at the moment.

Update: Episodes are scheduled to be repeated on Five USA on Sundays at 7pm and Thursdays at 9pm.

CSI crossover:

Hardcore fans of CSI are probably already aware of the upcoming storyline that involves Dr Langston (Laurence Fishburne) visiting first the CSI: Miami and then the CSI: New York teams, before returning to Vegas to conclude his investigation.

The CSI Trilogy kicks off with CSI: Miami on Tuesday 16th February at 10pm on Five (with this brand new episode in place of the normal Series 7 repeats). This episode is then repeated on Friday 19th at 11pm, also on Five.

Part two takes place in the ordinary run of CSI: New York on Saturday 20th February at approx 9:10pm, with the usual repeat on Five USA on Sunday 21st at 9pm.

The story then concludes in CSI: Vegas in its usual Tuesday slot at 9pm on 23rd February, which is also repeated as normal in its Thursday 10pm slot on Five USA.

Music to my ears:

Finally, some popular trailers over the last week have been:

Melrose Place pre-launch: 'Tik Tok' by Ke$ha

Melrose Place post-launch: 'Get Sexy' by Sugababes

Home And Away "the past finally catches up with Hugo": 'Hysteria' by Muse

NCIS first series on Five USA: 'Da Antidote' by Stanton Warriors

As always, if you have any questions comments or complaints, feel free to drop us an e-mail at customerservices@five.tv, as the comments on the blog are not checked regularly. You may also wish to have a look in the FAQ section of the website, which is updated regularly.

Hi all. Apologies again for the delay in posting some details here, it's been a busy few months dealing with the postbag. As always, our programme trailers have proved to be very popular, and the most in demand of the recent ones have been as follows:

New series of CSI: New York: 'Opening From Mishima' by The Kronos Quartet, from the Mishima soundtrack.

New series of CSI: Vegas: 'Burning Up' by Alpinestars.

New series of NCIS: 'Gotta Work' by Amerie.

CSI: Grissom's Greatest season screened over Christmas: 'Intro' by The XX.

Return of Neighbours after the Christmas break: a library track called 'It's You', published by KPM/Musichouse.

Return of Home And Away after the break: another library track, called 'Save Me', also published by KPM/Musichouse.

The latest Home And Away 'The mystery concludes' trailer: 'Lacrymosa' by Evanescence.

FlashForward.

Another popular topic in the mailbag is FlashForward, or more to the point, where is it and when will it be back. It is taking an extended break in the US, and as we were screening episodes so close to the American broadcasts, we have to do the same. It is expected to return in early March, and as soon as we have a specific date we will be advertsing it, both on air and here on the website.

As always, if you have any questions comments or complaints, feel free to drop us an e-mail at customerservices@five.tv, as the comments on the blog are not checked regularly. You may also wish to have a look in the FAQ section of the website, which is updated regularly.

Hi all, apologies for the slight gap between posts on here.

Firstly, the most popular trailer music we've had for a while has been the 'Seriously Funny Movies' trailer. This uses ‘Sleepyhead’ by Passion Pit and is available on their album ‘Chunk Of Change’.

Others that have proved popular in recent weeks are:

The Unit: 'Paint It Black' by The Rolling Stones

The Great London Jump: Robbie Maddison: 'Fire' by Kasabian (their latest single)

Zoom: Academy For Superheroes: 'Battle Without Honor Or Humanity' by Tomoyasu Hotei, from the soundtrack to Kill Bill Vol 1.

CSI: New York/Law And Order series finale: 'Hold My Hand' by UNKLE, from the album 'War Stories'

CSI: Miami launch: '$165 Million + Interest' by David Holmes, from the Oceans 12 soundtrack.

A Fistful Of Dollars: 'For The Love Of Money' by the O'Jays.

As always, if there's one we've missed off, or any other comments or queries, feel free to e-mail us at customerservices@five.tv.

Some new trailer news:

Air Force Afghanistan: uses 'Protection' by Massive Attack, featuring Tracey Thorn (of Everything But The Girl) on vocals

Rory And Paddy on FIVER: 'Where's Your Head At' by Basement Jaxx

CSI Sunday on FIVE USA (the turn up the lights/controlled environment one): It's 'Harlem Clavinette' by JJ Johnson and Bobby Womack, originally from the 'Accross 110th Street' soundtrack.

If there are any other trailers you would like the music details for, please e-mail us at customerservices@five.tv. While we do read the comments on the blog posts we don't always have the details to hand at the time and once we do get the details we don't then have the time to check through every blog comment to see who asked for it. However, by e-mailing us we can reply when we get the details.

We have rescheduled our Indianapolis 500 coverage and it will screen tonight, 2nd June at 02:00 (i.e. early hours of 3rd June).

This was due to be followed at 02:50 by coverage of the Indy Car ABC Supply Co AJ Foyt 225 from the Milwaukee Mile. However, because of some technical issues we are now unable to broadcast this race and will be repeating the Road Runner Turbo Indy 300 instead. We apologise for any inconvenience this causes.

Hi all, As we have explained in the past, trailer enquiries are pretty common amongst the queries we get. The music details for some of our current and most recent popular ones are as follows:

Fifth Gear trailer:'A-Punk' by Vampire Weekend

'New 'Fight Night on Five' trailer: 'Killing In The Name' by Rage Against The Machine Current 'Return Of Red John' Mentalist trailer: 'Red Right Hand' by Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds.

The previous trailer for The Mentalist: 'Runaway' by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

'Kick Ass Chicks' trailer (which featured Charlies Angels and Resident Evil): 'Heads Will Roll' by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

Five USA trailer for The Guardian: 'In For The Kill' by La Roux

New series of Law And Order: Criminal Intent: 'Walk On The Wild Side' by Lou Reed

Recent Five USA Action Movies: 'Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)' by Jimi Hendrix.

We are still waiting to hear the details of the NCIS finale trailer from our Creative Services Department, and will post here as soon as we know. In the meantime, if there are any other trailers you would like to know the music for, please drop us a line at customerservices@five.tv, and we'll be happy to look into it for you.

Hi all,

Some of you who normally watch us via Sky may have noticed an error message when trying to watch either Five, Five USA and FIVER, and the +1 channels. This is as a result of a change to the way Sky broadcast our signals (without getting too technical it's a transponder change). Most boxes updated automatically, but from the calls and correspondence we've been receiving in the office it's clear that several boxes have not.

If affected, you may wish to rectify this by disconnecting your box from the mains for a few minutes, and then plugging it back in. This should cause the box to automatically search out the new signal frequencies. If this does not work, you should contact Sky directly for further advice.

THE LION CUB FROM HARRODS

A lot of you have been asking if we'll be repeating this.  We are, and you can see it on Sunday at noon on Five.  It is also available on Demand Five

As Grissom's all set to collect his TV land equivalent of the P45, we're back with a tear in our eye and another summary of items from the mailbag over the last couple of weeks.

Trailer music:

There have been two trailers for CSI, one for each part of the two-part story that sees the departure of the big boss. Part one (19 Down) used 'Look After You' by The Fray from their album 'How To Save A Life', and the one for part two (1 To Go) uses 'Welcome, Ghosts' by Explosions In The Sky, from their album 'All Of A Sudden I MIss Everyone'. Over on Five USA, the trailers for the Thursday movies (including The Contractor, Out Of Reach and The Longest Yard) uses 'Thunderstruck' by AC/DC, which is from their album 'The Razor's Edge'.

Minder:

As I'm sure most of you will be aware, Minder came to a close this week. Feedback has mostly been very positive, and we've had a lot of people ask about a possible second series. It's too early yet to say if there will be a second one, but as always we're more than happy to log people's interest if they contact us directly. If you missed any of the episodes, they are available on the Demand Five service over at www.five.tv/demandfive.

Reception/Digital Switchover:

The switch from analogue to digital is well underway, and a lot of behind-the-scenes work is ongoing at a lot of transmitters. Even if you're not due to have your analogue signal switched off just yet, you may find that some of our services are affected, especially if transmitters need to run on reduced power while work is taking place. We're always happy to advise here at Five, or alternatively you can check out the Digital UK website for independent advice on the whole process as well as how it will affect you.

We’re back with a brief sample of what’s on your mind over the last couple of weeks…

A brief summary of what we’ve been receiving in our mailbag this week…

Five USA:

Five US is getting a bit of a spring clean. The result is Five USA, which launches on Monday 16th. You won’t need to retune or anything, it’ll just be in your line up wherever Five US used to be. Launch night features the start of Series 7 of The Shield at 10pm. You should also look out for the new Patrick Swayze series The Beast (Wednesday at 10pm) and Series 2 of 30 Rock (Friday at 9 and 9:30). Patrick Swayze fans may also want to look out for a Barbara Walters interview with the great man on Tuesday night at 11pm.

And anyone in London on Monday may want to pop round to Oxford Street tube where we’ll be celebrating the launch with a bit of New York class!

Trailer music:

We get our fair share of music requests for trailers. Some are made in house so the details are relatively easy to come across; others are done externally so it can take a while longer to find out the name of that tune. This week we’ve mostly had people still asking about The Shield (Kings Of Leon, as mentioned last week), the new Five USA trailer (‘Welcome To The Jungle’ by Guns n’ Roses) and we also finally got details for our Fashionista Diaries trailers from last year, which used a track called ‘Fashion’ by Koolwah and Andi Fraggs.

Narrative repeats: People often miss our screenings and want to know if something will be shown again before the next episode. The programmes attracting the most queries of this ilk at the moment are:

The Shield: yes! On Five USA on Thursday night/Friday morning. (From Episode 2 onwards there will also be a chance to catch up on Tuesday nights, also on Five USA)

CSI: Both CSI: Vegas and CSI: New York are repeated on Five USA at 9pm the evening after they are first broadcast.

Minder: Saturday evening about 7pm on Five, and Sunday at 9pm on FIVER

Ice Road Truckers: Sunday evenings on Five, normally at 8pm

Fifth Gear: Saturdays on Five, normally about 11am.

NCIS: there is a narrative repeat of this on Five, but the evenings do vary between Saturdays and Tuesdays. Best to check on http://www2.five.tv/tvguide/ for up to date scheduling.

It’s also worth checking out Demand Five, as most of these shows are available there too.

The Shield:

For now, we are only screening Series 7 on Five USA. We do hold the rights to screen it on the main channel too, and may do so in the future. However, there are no plans at present.

As always, if you have a question, comment or complaint about anything you’ve seen on Five, FIVER or Five US please drop us a line at customerservices@five.tv

A weekly dose of what’s on your mind from the desk of Customer Services

If you have a question, comment or complaint about anything you’ve seen on Five, FIVER or Five US please drop us a line at customerservices@five.tv

Welcome to our blog, which we’ll be posting once a week on these pages.  We hope to tell you about some of the issues that you the viewer have been contacting us about.

Trailer Music
As usual, there are a slew of trailer music requests; this week’s most popular being the Five US Thursday Movie one, we used ‘Time To Pretend’ by MGMT from their album ‘Oracular Spectacular’ for this one.  Other music you have been asking us about is the Dangerous Adventures For Boys one which uses a library track entitled ‘’Skunk’ which has been taken of an album entitled ‘Indie Rock’ and the CSI Trailers, which use the Mark Ronson Re-Version of Bob Dylan’s ‘Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I’ll Go Mine)’ and ‘You Did It’ by Ann Robinson.

Late Night Sport
The Baseball World Series always causes a few issues with our late night scheduling, what with its best of seven games format and penchant for overrunning matches, however this year’s was not helped by a game being suspended mid way through for the first time ever. Apologies to the V8, NHRA, Ironman and A1 GP fans out there, we’re hoping to get all these rescheduled when we can. However, the end of the baseball season always sees the start of our NBA basketball and NHL hockey coverage (plus a doubling of the NFL games), so hopefully the American Sports fans out there won’t feel too bereft.

Advert Breaks
Another issue featuring highly in the inbox this week has been the introduction of an extra advert break during Home And Away and Neighbours on FIVER. We’ve changed the structure of the breaks (there’s no longer one in between the two programmes), and over the course of the evening we’re not showing any more adverts than we used to. However, the advertisers understandably want the spots in our most popular programmes. While Martin Lewis would be proud of us, we realise not everyone appreciates the change and we have been logging all your comments regarding the new break structure for the advert bods.

Freesat
As with every week for a while now, we’ve also been getting a lot of folks ask about us broadcasting on Freesat. We’ve been beavering away behind the scenes with this and are able to confirm that we’ll be available on this platform from 18th November.

As always, if you have any comments, or queries about Five, drop us an e-mail at customerservices@five.tv