ITV and Virgin Media O2 have signed a deal to allow for the integration of ITV content into the Virgin Media O2 platform

ITV has announced a five-year deal tying up with Virgin Media O2. Virgin Media and O2 have recently been promoting themselves as Volt (to Virgin Media customers), and this new move is clearly part of a re-alignment of the platform for the future. Details provided include:

…full integration of the ITV Hub platform onto Virgin TV set-top boxes. This enables viewers to seamlessly search for and watch all of ITV’s ever-growing selection of available programmes, including more full series than ever, on-demand directly from within the ITV Hub — which currently has 34.8 million registered users. A range of new features including programme start over and cloud recording will also be introduced for some Virgin TV customers in future.

This looks to be more relevant to Virgin customers, until you remember this also means more reach for ITV advertisers. We skipped some more technical parts of the announcement, but the benefits to ITV include:

ITV’s wide range of much-loved programmes and content across various genres will receive enhanced prominence across all Virgin TV interfaces, and bespoke curations of content will be made available within the catch-up sections of the provider’s platform. This will help viewers easily discover, access and watch the latest and greatest ITV shows all in one place.

We do have to wonder how this will compete with the bigger UK platforms (including iPlayer, All4 and Sky), but it is a good step forward. We’ll keep out eyes open for further development over the five-year term. You can read the complete announcement for more details.