Channel Five reveals intention to step up digital TV presence

Dawinderpal Sahota, Computing, Friday 11 June 2010 at 15:08:00

News comes at a time when ITV is in talks with Apple, BlackBerry and Google
exploring smartphone opportunities

UK TV channel Five has revealed plans to aggressively ramp up its online
presence.

Fran�ois Chabat, the channel's senior technology manager, exclusively told
Computing that syndication of content is a key part of its strategy.

He said that the channel now wants content available on more devices and
revealed that Demand Five is the only UK broadcaster's catch-up service offered
on Sony?s
Bravia
internet TV.

The broadcaster has been posting content from its Demand Five catch-up
service on YouTube, TV.com and the forthcoming Project Canvas, which will
include content from several channels.

The strategy appears to be paying dividends as Chabat reported continuous
growth since 2008, culminating in its highest ever traffic just last month,
where it saw seven million unique streams of its content.

The news comes at a time when it was revealed that ITV will be bringing its
online video-on-demand service to smartphones.

The broadcaster is in talks with Apple, BlackBerry and Google?s Android team
about launching an ITV Player mobile app, according to
The
Telegraph.

ITV hopes to be the first major UK broadcaster to release a TV catch-up app
on the most popular mobile devices, beating the BBC and Channel 4 to the punch.

The broadcaster intends to charge a one-off payment for the app and is trying
to get its 30-day catch-up service available on every key smartphone device, a
senior TV executive close to ITV told the newspaper.

The app will be populated daily with new content which will be continually
supported by advertising.

Full story at http://www.computing.co.uk/computing/news/2264618/itv-player-hopes-first-catch