Home and Away: Channel Five inks deal with CBS for online broadcasts

U.S. TV network CBS has agreed to a deal with Channel Five that will allow the American broadcaster to show many of Channel Five's programmes to internet users via its TV.com website.

The Guardian reports that the deal "establishes TV.com as the latest contender in the emerging UK market for on-demand television on the internet, putting itself up against Google-owned video site YouTube and SeeSaw, the successor to UK broadcasters' ill-fated venture Project Kangaroo that launched last week".

The Hollywood Reporter hails the deal as the first of its kind for "long-form content" in the European market, and says that such content is in high and growing demand, citing recent changes at YouTube and SeeSaw.

The Guardian says that similar deals have yet to materialize, though they are certainly in the works. ITV, the newspaper says, is currently in negotiations with Hulu, but the broadcaster still does not provide its content online.

Experts say that higher broadband access rates in the UK could make it a more lucrative on-demand video market for its size.