British Broadcaster, Channel 4 have released to the Online TV watching public a massive 4,000 plus hours of content. This is the first time a TV channel has released its back catalogue for on demand viewing

Online viewers can now watch every episode of classic TV shows such as Father Ted, Queer As Folk, Shameless, Vic Reeves Big Night Out, Ali G and Brass Eye for free.

Currently the 4oD catch up TV service allows online TV watchers to view programming for the previous 30 days after broadcasting. The BBC and other networks only allow 7 days before removing streams. So it is a major development by Channel 4 to upload such a vast amount of older content.

It is a great move that even the BBC had to congratulate saying it was “great news for viewer choice”!

In fact this move could pressurise the BBC and Hulu to up their game and give more content. Viewing figures for Online TV keep growing as in the UK, one person in every 35 internet users headed straight to an online tv or video website. The iPlayer was the 22nd most popular UK website in the month of February and the second most visited video site after the mighty YouTube.

Top American TV site Hulu has now become second biggest video website showing over 350 million streams during the Feb-March period and is talking about a possible UK rollout of its service.

Its not all good news though as the thorny rights issue is keeping some Channel 4 content offline. Shows such as Friends wont be shown and oddly even Channel 4 News is not included. Amathe news show can only show brough in news items up until midnight of the day broadcast!

Currently Channel 4’s viewing figures for catch up tv service 4oD are growing month by month. Channel 4 spokesman Jon Gisby commented:- “We were the first broadcaster to launch a comprehensive video on demand service in 2006, and since that time 4oD has become one of the UK’s most popular VOD brands. We are extremely proud of the improved service and think the combination of fantastic content that’s easy to find and view will prove compelling for all users.”

It brings forward the day when we can watch what we want when we want without buying all those DVD collections. It may be time to put my ‘Shameless’ Boxset on Ebay

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