Industry | 2009.10.15
YouTube signs deal to screen Channel 4 shows
First tie-in of its kind sees Google-owned site host programmes such as Peep Show and Skins shortly after broadcast
Channel 4 has signed a landmark deal with YouTube, becoming the first broadcaster worldwide to make full-length TV shows such as Skins, Hollyoaks and Peep Show available to users of the Google-owned video-sharing website.
The deal, which has been under negotiation for the last six months, will see Channel 4 make its existing 4oD online video catch-up service available via YouTube shortly after shows have aired on TV.
YouTube users can watch the shows free of charge, with Channel 4 to sell the advertising around the content. The broadcaster will also make available 3,000 hours of archive programming including shows such as Brass Eye, Derren Brown and Ramsay\'s Kitchen Nightmares.
The deal has been struck for an initial period of three years with Channel 4 and YouTube sharing ad revenues "on an agreed formula". Channel 4 said that the agreement will also see it sell ads around some non-Channel 4 content on YouTube for the first time.
"Making our programmes directly accessible to YouTube\'s 20 million UK users will financially benefit both Channel 4 and our independent production partners and help bolster our investment in quality British content," said Andy Duncan, the Channel 4 chief executive.
"It demonstrates our ability to strike dynamic commercial partnerships to help underpin our future as a commercially funded, not-for-profit multi-platform public service network."
Channel 4\'s TV shows will be fully available via YouTube in early 2010. The deal is non-exclusive, allowing Channel 4 to continue distributing its 4oD service via its own website, Channel4.com, and other third-party sites and services.
The broadcaster already has several channels running short video clips from its programming on YouTube, including ones for 4Food, T4, E4, Hollyoaks and Big Brother.
YouTube said that the partnership was the first time any broadcaster had moved to provide a comprehensive catch-up TV service on its service.
Yesterday Michael Grade, the outgoing executive chairman of ITV, reiterated his belief that such deals will mean that "Americans will take the lion\'s share of the internet value in our content in this country, very soon" .
Grade, speaking to the Lord\'s communications committee, admitted that ITV is likely to do a deal with an American video-on-demand aggregation service – such as Google or Hulu, the online TV joint venture backed by News Corporation, NBC Universal and Disney – in order to keep pace with the digital evolution of the industry. He also cautioned that "none of that money that goes to America will get invested in the UK".
ITV was one of the partners in the ill-fated UK online video service Kangaroo, alongside Channel 4 and BBC Worldwide, which aimed to provide a UK-run competitor but was closed down by the competition regulator in February .
Last week YouTube revealed that it was serving more than 1 billion video streams each day globally.
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