ITV and Ch4 to hit PS3 this week

Sony’s PS3 will add to significant strings to its digital content bow this week with the addition of streaming content services from both Channel 4 and ITV this week.

That’s according to The Guardian, which claims that the launch will mark a change of strategy for ITV which, until now, has been reluctant to offer its content via third party platforms.

Previously it had shunned offers from the likes of YouTube and currently only partners with Virgin Media, BT Vision and Freesat.

We are accelerating our distribution strategy,” ITV.com MD Robin Pembroke stated. As awareness of ITV Player grows, so will consumption of ITV’s content on demand.”

Channel 4’s director of commercial business development Sarah Rose was equally as enthused, saying it’s the first time the company had felt a console manufacturer was ready for such a content deal.

Said Rose: They are much bigger now and moving into the entertainment space, plus it sits well with our 16 to 34-year-old audience strengths. Are we taking youth away from our own platform? I don’t think we are. The audience are moving around and so are we.”

The broadcaster added that a similar deal with Microsoft for Xbox 360 was perfectly possible, but that the platform holder was not not coming to our door” and actively looking for a deal. The Wii was ruled out due to its inability to carry advertising.

Sony’s marketing director Alan Duncan reckons that ITV and Channel 4 can expect an incremental traffic increase of around ten per cent as a result of the launches. It is about changing people’s attitudes to the PS3 as a platform to view it as a much broader entertainment device,” he added.