Channel 4 will be launching a video-on-demand media player service on December 6 under the brand name "4oD". Registered 4oD users will have up to 30 days after a programme's first transmission to watch repeats. The charge per episode will be "about 99p".

Channel 4 will be also offer downloads of many of its archive comedy shows like Trigger Happy TV and Drop the Dead Donkey via 4oD.

Meanwhile an alliance of newspaper and magazine publishers is calling for an expert forum to discuss opening up the BBC's planned iPlayer service to commercial content to stop it dominating the download and on-demand market. The iPlayer service, which is currently in development, will allow licence fee payers to access hundreds of archived BBC shows if it is given the go ahead.