4oD over Christmas*

As I mentioned already I spent most of yesterday putting together the pages on 4oD for the Christmas break. So do you promote the Catch Up stuff that's on telly or the huge amount of archive that we've just added - what will people want? You run through the different scenarios of how people's TV consumption changes over Christmas alongside questions of whether they'll have broadband access and the like. I had an argument with nice guy Charlie, the 4oD marketing guy, about the rates of broadband penetration in the UK ("Will people have broadband access if they're at their parents?"). The head of new media operations overheard us bickering and suggested as it was past 6pm on the channel's last working day maybe we should just head home. Anyway, I've gone for promoting the archive up to Boxing day and after that it's the four free series of Shameless on 4oD in anticipation of the new series that starts 1 January.

Back in the day when there were only three channels people used to complain about the number of repeats. Now we have whole channels that are effectively the repackaging of repeats (any channel with the word 'gold' in the title). I guess the other way of looking at video-on-demand services is that they're just repeats on demand or repeats that you missed the first time around. Happy Christmas.


* The same entry has already appeared 5 minutes previously on my personal blog. I figure the clever reuse of content (or repeats as we used to call them) is very much in the spirit of the season.

Now on 4oD: Wed 5 Dec 2007

Current highlights in 30 Day Free Catch Up include:
Ugly Betty
Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares
How to Look Good Naked
Property Ladder
The Secret Millionaire

Nearly Famous on E4 has been doing well on 4oD. It's like Hollyoaks meets Fame and might help fill the void while waiting for Series 2 of Skins to start in the new year.

Most of the comedy you'll find in archive is now available for free, both for streams and downloading, and that includes every series of Peep Show, Spaced, Father Ted and Black Books.

NB: If you have the 4oD application installed on your PC then the links above will take you straight through to the series page for the programme you're after. If you don't then the link will take you to the 4oD marketing site (Oh joy!) where you can find out more about the service and download the app there. If you know you want the 4oD app without the marketing gumpf then download it here.