Tuesday 22 April 2008

ITV to sell classic shows on iTunes

ITV is to make a range of classic programmes including Brideshead Revisited and Inspector Morse available for sale through iTunes.

The deal, which will be the first time that ITV has made TV shows available for sale via a third-party website, will see more than 260 hours of archive shows made available via Apple's iTunes UK store.

ITV shows available on the iTunes service from today include Lewis, Cold Feet, Brideshead Revisited, Goodnight Mr Tom, and Gerry Anderson's puppet classic Captain Scarlet.

Later this year ITV will make shows including Inspector Morse, The Prisoner, The Saint and adaptations of Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey and Emma available via iTunes.

The shows will be priced at from £1.89p per episode and fans will be able to download complete series.

ITV is not making current programmes or series available.

"ITV has thousands of hours of classic content in the archive which we are bringing to a whole new audience via iTunes," said Dawn Airey, managing director of ITV global content.

"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."

The deal was brokered by Granada Ventures, which has previously made more than 300 films from the ITV DVD catalogue available via movie download services such as filmon.com, lovefilm.com and vizumi.com.

ITV streams its programming live via ITV.com and offers a catch-up TV service.
The broadcaster's shows are also being made available via an ad-funded service on youth-targeted social networking website Bebo.

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