ITV Programming Now Available on iTunes

LONDON, April 23: ITV is
offering more than 260 hours of its programming for purchase or download
through the iTunes Store in the U.K.

iTunes customers can now
choose from 260-plus hours of ITV content, including the series Lewis and Cold Feet, the award-winning classic Brideshead Revisited, the drama Goodnight Mister Tom and Gerry Anderson’s Captain Scarlet. Additional programming will be available on
iTunes throughout the year, including Inspector Morse, The Prisoner, The Saint and the
adaptations of Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey and Emma.

All shows can be purchased
from £1.89 per episode and can be viewed on a Mac or PC, iPod with video,
iPhone or on a widescreen TV with Apple TV. Shows will also be available for
purchase as complete series.

The deal was brokered by
Steve Gallant, the publishing director at Granada Ventures, part of ITV
Worldwide. Granada Ventures has secured a number of download-to-own deals this
year, resulting in more than 300 films from the ITV DVD catalogue being made
available via online movie download services such as filmon.com, lovefilm.com
and vizumi.com.

The iTunes deal is the
first that ITV has agreed to that includes non-film programming. The agreement
builds on the successful launch of ITV’s broadband service, ITV.com, which has
delivered 38 million videos since August of last year. ITV has also announced a
number of online deals in the past months, including the Kangaroo service, a
joint venture with the BBC and Channel 4 that is slated to launch later this
year, and a partnership with Bebo to deliver premium ITV content to the social
media network’s community of 40 million users worldwide.

Dawn Airey, the managing
director of ITV Global Content, said: “We want to give viewers the opportunity
to watch their favorite shows wherever they are. ITV has thousands of hours of
classic content in the archive which we are bringing to a whole new audience
via iTunes. Our strategy is to deliver 360 degree value for our content on
multiple platforms, and in multiple territories, and our partnership with Apple
is a demonstration that we are delivering on that strategy.”

—By Irene Lew