YouTube, Five Strike Long-Form Content Deal

LONDON: Five is making full-length episodes of its original programming available on YouTube in the U.K. on an ad-supported basis.

The content can be found within YouTube’s UK Shows section, which features more than 3,000 hours of full-length programming and clips from broadcasters and producers. Via the Five deal, British web users will be able to access the Demand Five video-on-demand catch-up service of new programs through YouTube shortly after television transmission. Titles under the agreement include Neighbours, Home And Away and The Gadget Show. YouTube users will also be able to access around 250 hours of Five’s archive content. YouTube, which recently announced a similar arrangement with Channel 4, has about 20 million British users.

Announcing the deal, Five’s chairman and chief executive, Dawn Airey, stated: “This is a tremendously important deal for Five because in one fell swoop it extends the reach of our content beyond linear TV and our own existing websites to a new audience of younger, upwardly mobile and web-savvy individuals—an audience that advertisers are equally desirous of attracting. Importantly it extends the availability of legally available long-form content online thereby dealing a blow to web piracy. The partnership we are announcing today with YouTube is also a great example of how broadcasters can leverage the expertise of companies outside the field of TV in order to work together to take advantage of exciting new markets. Legitimate internet video operators are far from the ‘parasites’ that some have sought to portray them as in the past; on the contrary, they can be an important partner in helping modern-day broadcasters reach new audiences and continue to fund high-quality original content.”