Who Owns Channel 5?

Channel 5 is owned by Paramount, the American media group, which bought it in 2014 when it was called Viacom. Companies House records Viacom Camden Lock Limited as holding 75% or more of Channel 5 Broadcasting Limited — a name three corporate renames out of date, which is exactly why the register must be read by number. Channel 5 has been American-owned for more than a decade, having previously belonged to Richard Desmond. Ownership verified 6 September 2026.

Who owns Channel 5?

The broadcaster is CHANNEL 5 BROADCASTING LIMITED (03147640), incorporated 17 January 1996 — a year before the channel launched.

Its sole person with significant control is Viacom Camden Lock Limited, holding 75% or more of shares and voting rights with the right to appoint and remove directors, notified 6 April 2016.

That date is the PSC regime’s commencement, not a transaction date. Viacom had already bought Channel 5 in 2014; the register simply began recording controllers in April 2016 and carries that date across thousands of companies. It should never be read as the day someone acquired anything.

Parent company and ownership structure

Above Viacom Camden Lock the chain runs to the United States. The ultimate parent has changed name repeatedly without changing hands in the way the names suggest: Viacom merged with CBS in 2019 to form ViacomCBS, which renamed itself Paramount Global in 2022, and which became Paramount Skydance following the Skydance transaction completing in 2025.

So the register names a company after a corporate identity that has been superseded three times. The entity is unchanged and the ownership is unbroken — but anyone searching for “Paramount” on Companies House would not find Channel 5, and anyone reading “Viacom” would assume the ownership was a decade stale. It is not.

There is a second trap. NORTHERN & SHELL ENTERPRISES LIMITED (03012148, incorporated 20 January 1995) carries the previous names Channel 5 Broadcasting and Channel 5 Television Group. That is Richard Desmond’s company, which held the name during his ownership and released it. The broadcaster today is 03147640; only the number distinguishes them.

Major shareholders or controlling interests

No individual controls Channel 5. Above the UK chain sits a listed American parent whose shares are held by institutional and public investors, and the Skydance transaction brought the Ellison family interests into that structure as a substantial holder.

None of that appears on Companies House. The UK register names one holding company at 75%+ and stops, which is the normal limit for a foreign-owned British broadcaster: the register establishes the immediate controller, not the ultimate one.

Other media assets in the group

The group owns Paramount Pictures, CBS, MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and the Paramount+ streaming service, alongside Channel 5 and My5 in Britain.

Channel 5’s position is unusual among British public service broadcasters. ITV is a separately listed UK company; Channel 4 is publicly owned and state-established; the BBC is a chartered corporation. Channel 5 alone is a wholly owned subsidiary of a foreign commercial group, while still carrying public service obligations under its Ofcom licence.

Those obligations are why the ownership matters practically: news provision, original commissioning and regional quotas are licence conditions that survive changes of owner.

Ownership history

Channel 5 launched in March 1997, the last analogue terrestrial channel in Britain.

• 1997–2010 — owned by a consortium later consolidated under Germany’s RTL Group, itself part of Bertelsmann.
• 2010 — Richard Desmond‘s Northern & Shell buys it for a reported £103.5m.
• 2014 — Viacom buys it for a reported £450m, more than four times what Desmond paid four years earlier.
• 2019, 2022, 2025 — the American parent is successively renamed ViacomCBS, Paramount Global and Paramount Skydance.

The register’s record of that history is indirect but real: the Desmond era survives only as previous names attached to Northern & Shell Enterprises Limited, and the Viacom era survives in the name of a holding company that nobody has renamed.

Sources and verification

The company numbers, the January 1996 incorporation, the Viacom Camden Lock PSC entry and the previous names on 03012148 are all Companies House records, checkable by number.

Two limits. The register stops at the first holding company, so Paramount is not named on any UK filing — the connection is established by the transaction announcements and the group’s own disclosures. And the entity names on the register lag the corporate reality by years, because there is no requirement to rename a holding company when its parent rebrands. Companies House does not verify most filed information.

Channel 5’s licence and its public service obligations are matters for Ofcom, whose register is the authoritative source for who is licensed to broadcast.