However, Five's parent company - RTL Group - is the biggest broadcaster in Europe, so the UK minnow has a very powerful parent that enables it to stay in the game and, if it gets its offer right, punch above its weight.
But Five's fortunes have not been good in recent times. Media agencies have targeted it mercilessly this year and the broadcaster's revenue is set to fall a shocking 25% in 2009, 9% more than the overall TV market. Feisty chief executive Dawn Airey, profiled on page 12 of this issue, puts this down to Five losing its mojo and, basically, being too expensive.
She has used the 11 months since she rejoined Five to rectify pricing, strengthen her executive team and put the fun back into the operation - the latest fruits of which were revealed in last week's promising autumn schedule launch. Five is also about to win the Discovery third-party sales account from Sky.
Running parallel, Five has been talking to all and sundry about "all options of consolidation". Talks with C4 reached a particularly advanced stage, but foundered principally because C4 simply didn't want the merger to happen. But they could yet resume once C4 has a new chief executive and chairman in place.
RTL's chief executive Gerhard Zeiler recently told the Edinburgh TV Festival that costs in the TV industry had inflated massively and that everyone had to look at running costs, production and distribution. Five is offering itself as a deal partner through which such synergies and savings could be achieved.
If Five has had its "turn" this year, the feeling is that TV traders may target Sky in 2010 and a Big Brother-less C4 in 2011. With a fair wind and if new programming developments live up to expectations, Five could finally be in a position to ink a deal that will deliver some value back to its supportive shareholder.