Fans of Aussie soaps, American dramas and wacky documentaries, rejoice! Five has finally launched Demand Five, its online catch-up service, after a trial service recently for some of its US imports. Now you need never miss an episode of Neighbours or Home and Away, or any of the network’s other shows, as in addition to the million or so showings across the week on the main channel and its subsidiaries, you can watch programmes through the shiny new interweb. Except (whispers) when I tried to use it last night, it wasn’t doing anything and crashed my browser. Still, early days and all that.
Five isn’t the only network redeveloping its online catch-up service. Following rumblings that 4OD wasn’t really cutting the mustard compared to the BBC iPlayer, you can now watch some of their shows from the past week on their main website. ITV’s online service has also vastly improved lately, or so I hear, as I can’t remember the last time I wanted to watch an ITV show and would have needed such a service, apart from episode two of Pushing Daisies, inbetween episodes one and three, grumble, grumble. Still it will mean I can watch Harry Hill’s TV Burp when it returns, because I always forget.
Not to be outdone, the Beeb are also trialling a new Beta version of the iPlayer. Soon no-one in Britain will ever get any work done again…
