ITV and Channel 4 in talks with YouTube to offer archived content

The guys at CNET spied a report on New Media Age that suggested the two terrestrial channels are in talks with Google to dish out their archived content in full on YouTube in the UK.

Recent content would continue to be viewable on the channels’ own on-demand catch-up services.

So far BBC Worldwide has refused to comment on whether the Beeb would be involved in a similar deal, but has said it remained “committed to offering viewers access to its shows wherever they watched content”.

As CNET points out, Project Kangaroo – a commercial project that aimed to bring together the three channels in question – was vetoed by the Competition Commission last year for posing too much of a threat to other players in the video-on-demand market.

However, it had seemed keen to see the three team up with “other new and/or already established providers of VOD” and see them compete against each other, instead of work as a whole.

Whether YouTube will be the fourth party to make this all possible remains to be seen, but we’ll be sure to keep you in the loop with any news we get. Let us know if you’d use the service below.

Dan Grabham Editor-in-Chief

About

Dan is Editor-in-chief of Stuff, working across the magazine and the Stuff.tv website.  Our Editor-in-Chief is a regular at tech shows such as CES in Las Vegas, IFA in Berlin and Mobile World Congress in Barcelona as well as at other launches and events. He has been a CES Innovation Awards judge. Dan is completely platform agnostic and very at home using and writing about Windows, macOS, Android and iOS/iPadOS plus lots and lots of gadgets including audio and smart home gear, laptops and smartphones. He's also been interviewed and quoted in a wide variety of places including The Sun, BBC World Service, BBC News Online, BBC Radio 5Live, BBC Radio 4, Sky News Radio and BBC Local Radio.

Areas of expertise

Computing, mobile, audio, smart home