Channel 4 puts all its programmes online

Channel 4 has become the first UK broadcaster to make all of its homegrown programmes available to download.

Using the 4oD service, internet users can pay 99p to watch programmes broadcast in the previous 30 days, and for an extra pound, programmes can be downloaded to be permanently kept. Archive programmes, such as Trigger Happy TV and Drop The Dead Donkey will also be available.

The BBC ran a similar trial at the beginning of the year, with its interactive media player (iMP), although that only offered a handful of shows per channel, and only from the previous seven days. The BBC's full iMP service is expected to begin in 2007, but its plans must first be approved by its governing body.

Channel 4's viewers, meanwhile, will from February be able to subscribe at £3.99 per month for unlimited downloads. For the time being, the broadcaster says the programmes will not show any advertising, and nor will the website from which viewers can download programmes.

All of the channel's 'commissioned' content, meaning anything originally made for or by the channel, will be available, as well as some of its imported shows. A representative of Channel 4 told Computeractive that it had already secured the rights to offer hit American show Desparate Housewives, and was in talks to offer other programmes such as Friends.