Tele 5 replaced Germany's first music television channel, Musicbox, which aired from 1984 up to 1988. Prior to 1988, Silvio Berlusconi bought part of Musicbox and rebranded it as Tele5 on 11 January 1988. Its programming were still produced in the same Munich building as had been those by Musicbox, a music video show named Musicbox remained part of the regular program schedule of Tele5, and several Musicbox show hosts transferred to Tele5. From 1988 to 1992, Tele5 was part of Berlusconi's Europe-wide network of sister channels all with the number 5 in their names and a stylized flower in their logo, which also included Canale 5 in Italy, Telecinco in Spain, and La Cinq in France. Tele5 timeshared with RTL Television on terrestrial television from 8:00am or 9:00am to 5:00pm and during nighttime. During its four-year lifespan, Tele5 especially due to its children's programming increasingly took market shares from Leo Kirch's German television networks, which prompted Kirch to buy the channel in 1992 and subsequently rebranded it into DSF on 1 January 1993.
"Bim Bam Bino" was the name of a show for children, with TV shows for young viewers. A plush mouse called Bino served as "announcer" between the different TV series often consisting of animated shows, which included He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Bobobobs, The Raccoons, Filmation Ghostbusters, Around the World with Willy Fog, The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin, Alvin and the Chipmunks, The Smurfs, Fantastic Max, Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics, Saber Rider, Queen Millennia, Captain Future, or Anne of Green Gables. At the time, most of the other channels had a few weekly or daily series for children. Some channels had "double features" with two shorter shows running "back to back". With "Bim Bam Bino", Tele 5 was the first German channel that had a big all-week program block for children and teens. Only broadcast in the morning hours at first, the show soon grew to encompass also afternoons and eventually even early evenings. At the time the channel went off air, "Bim Bam Bino" made up the biggest part of Tele 5's program and ran from about 9am to 6 or 7pm.
Legacy shows
Some of the shows that had their German premiere Tele5's first incarnation went on to find a new home. Bim Bam Bino was taken up for production by kabel eins, while the original Bim Bam Bino crew went on to do the similar children's programming puppet announcer show Vampy on RTL II. Many of the cartoon shows priorly broadcast on Tele5 as part of Bim Bam Bino at first appeared partly on the kabel 1 version of Bim Bam Bino, partly on RTL II's Vampy. Bitte lächeln was the only Tele5 show that was briefly taken up by its successor DSF before moving on to RTL II, and later ran under the new title Schwupps - Die Pannenshow on Tm3, and during its entire run remained hosted by Mike Carl who had already hosted it on Tele5. By the time Bitte lächeln aka Schwupps had moved to Tm3, a few of the cartoon shows originally on Tele5 were also taken up by Tm3 for its morning hour slots. The most successful survivor of the old Tele5 was the game showRuck Zuck, which remained in production for over a decade on various channels after the closure of the old Tele5, appearing on RTL II, tm3, and even the new Tele 5.
Relaunch
In April 2002, Tele München Gruppe relaunched the channel, now centred towards movies and TV series. Tele 5's second incarnation originally started with Jochen Kröhne as CEO, who had been program director on Musicbox as well as on Tele5's original incarnation. Kröhne the new Tele 5 in 2005 and was replaced as CEO by Kai Blasberg. Jochen Bendel, one of the show hosts of the original Tele5, appeared on the channel from the beginning, including by hosting new editions of the game show Ruck Zuck, until he left the network in 2005 as well.
Since 1 May 2012, an Austrian feed of Tele5 was launched. It simulcasts the German channel's programming with the addition of local advertisements. It also includes promotion of Austrian channel ATV. The ads marketing is produced a cooperation with ATV, too.
HD feed
Since 19 October 2011 Tele 5 broadcasts in HD on HD+, a satellite television platform owned by SES-Astra. Like most channels in Europe broadcasting in HD, its SD feed is a downscaled version of its main high-definition programming. Tele5 HD is also distributed in Vodafone and Telekom Entertain.
