The addition of the free-to-view 4oD player and the ITV player is a continuation of Sony's ongoing overall strategy to promote the PS3 games console as an entertainment hub by offering a mix of several free-to-view and transactional third party content services.  In Europe, Sony has opted to partner with multiple broadcasters in a local territory before, for example, offering catch-up services from RTVE, Antena 3 and LaSexta in Spain. In these cases a link appears on the main PS3 menu which goes directly to the broadcasters' catch-up services using the console's built-in web browser. The broadcaster will generally reciprocate by offering a version of its service which is optimised for the PS3 platform (e.g. offers an improved user experience).
For Channel 4 and ITV, the PS3 partnership is the first deal offering direct access to both broadcasters catch-up services from an internet connected living room device. Both broadcasters, however, have already opted to make programming available via content deals with third party platforms, with Channel 4 arguably the more aggressive of the two- inking content deals in the past 18 months with online video portals SeeSaw and YouTube. Programming from ITV is currently available for catch-up on BT Vision and Virgin Media TV platforms, but apart from its own website, ITV.com, the broadcaster has not offered any of its programming elsewhere online.
For the BBC the PS3 has made up four per cent of total iPlayer streams for much of H2 2010, down from 10 percent in the period just after it launched. As the services from ITV and Channel 4 mature on the console we would expect them to achieve a broadly similar share of total consumption, although the console is likely to contribute slightly more to their consumption than it does to the BBC's because of the wide variety of platforms that the iPlayer appears on.