La Cinq was France's first commercial free-to-air television channel. Launched on 20 February 1986, it was owned by Fininvest and functioned as a sister channel to the Italian Canale 5. La Cinq had some success, but didn't live as long as its Italian counterpart. It ceased operations on 12 April 1992 after being liquidated by the tribunal de commerce of Paris nine days earlier due to its inability to repay its debt.
1986–1987[]
SVG NEEDED
1987–1991[]
1991–1992[]
Designer:
Jean-Paul Goude
Typography:
Bodoni (customized) Franklin Gothic Heavy
Launched:
Unknown
On screen, only the digit 5 was shown.
Télé Emploi[]
Some of the empty space left by the financial collapse of La Cinq was filled by Arte when it launched on 30 May 1992. In March 1994, Télé Emploi (a temporary public channel created in order to help people with finding jobs) was launched to fill the remainder of the space that was used by La Cinq.
March–April 1994[]
La Cinquième[]
Télé Emploi was replaced by La Cinquième on 13 December 1994, a new public channel dedicated to education and documentaries.
On January 7, 2002, France Télévisions introduced a new look for its three channels. At the same time La Cinquème changed its name to France 5, in line with its two big sisters.
The colour green was chosen to symbolise "fertility and freshness" ("la fertilité et la fraîcheur"). As the colours of France 2 and France 3 are red and blue, the green colour completes the RGB colour model.
The first new look for France 5 came in March 2002. The idents for this look showed filmed scenes where a flood, whirl or burst of letters suddenly appear. Other parts of the identity for France 5 was minimalist with moving text on solid backgrounds in pastelle colours.
After a while, France 5 changed graphics again. The "flood of letters" theme was kept, but this time the letters themselves would form objects and scenes against pastelle backgrounds.
On April 7, 2008, France Télévisions introduced a company-wide image refresh, which included an updated logo and the addition of gradients to the logos of each channel.
On January 29, 2018, France Télévisions introduced a new look for all of its services for the first time since 2002. This new look was designed by Paris-based agency Movement, who previously designed its 2012 rebrand package and Franceinfo. With this, France 5's familiar green color was kept but in a slightly more darker shade.
1Joint venture with ARD and ZDF. 2Joint venture with TF1 and Groupe M6. 3TF1, the former main channel of what is now France Télévisions, was privatized in April 1987 and is now the flagship channel of Groupe TF1.
