More details on the second phase of Five’s online TV offering, currently under development. The new platform will be launched early in the New Year, the company tells Media Week. Since it launched in late 2006, the extremely modest Five Download has offered only episodes of US imports CSI and Gray’s Anatomy for download via the web, though some titles are available at a premium a week ahead of TV transmission (priced £0.99 to £2.49).
CEO Jane Lighting said back in the summer the new service would add advertising support to the current model; the latest story says subscriptions will figure, too. It will offer both catch-up and archive programming and Five is looking at getting carriage on a pay-TV platform, which probably means Virgin Media, where Channel 4’s 4oD online store has equivalent on-demand TV billing. So Five will now dip more than its toe in to the water.