ITV Launch First UK Catchup TV Phone App
ITV app coming to Smartphones
While the BBC are delaying the launch of their news and sports apps on a range of smartphones, rival ITV have jumped the gun and revealed a dedicated tv app allowing viewers to watch catch-up TV on the most popular mobile devices. They have managed to beat rivals the BBC and Channel 4. BBC’s iPlayer and the Channel 4 4onDemand services can both be watched on mobile browsers, but neither have launched apps.
The BBC had been planning to launch smartphone apps, but are holding off, after complaints from the media industry, claiming the apps would be unfair to rivals . The ITV Player app, which the TV company is hoping will be live in each smartphone’s respective app store by the beginning of September, will not be free, according to a senior TV executive close to ITV.
“ITV is trying to get its content onto every platform and having ITV Player, its 30-day catch up service, available on the key smartphone devices, is an incredibly important part of the broadcaster’s digital strategy.
“There will be a one-off payment for the app, and the app will be populated on a daily basis with new content which will be continually supported by advertising,” they said.
An ITV spokesman said: “Viewers are consuming content on a range of platforms to suit their lifestyles so we want to make our content available when and where consumers want to watch it. We are considering options for this as part of our ongoing strategic review.”
ITV are also said to be in discussions with Sony about launching ITV Player on the PS3 games console, according to the same source. The service would be streamed and advertising supported. It is hoping to launch on this platform also by the beginning of September. Nintendo’s Wii platform will not allow advertising and Microsoft’s Xbox does not allow free content as it charges for all web content using Xbox Live.
Just in time for the World cup, ITV will tomorrow launch its first free live TV web app for the iPhone allowing viewers to watch ITV 1 and 2 in real-time via their Apple phone.
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[...] ITV have launched an iPhone app for ITV1 and ITV2 the simulcasts of their main two channels ahead of the World Cup, but has no catch-up offering. Satellite broadcaster Sky has also launched a live streaming mobile TV app. [...]