ITV's Hub is its answer to BBC iPlayer and All 4
As more and more households embrace online TV services, broadcasters are changing the way they deliver content in order to better fit around their audience. Last year, the BBC updated the iPlayer website and apps, followed by Channel 4's rebranded All 4 portal in March. Now it's ITV's turn. The company announced today that it will scrap the existing ITV Player and ITV.com website and roll them into a new entity: The ITV Hub. It will house all of the channels you'd expect (ITV1, ITV2, ITV3, ITV4, CITV and ITVBe) and you'll be able to either watch live or stream on-demand via a smartphone, tablet, PC, connected TV or set-top box.
ITV says that it will deliver its first ever app for Amazon's new Fire TV and Fire TV Stick. More importantly, ITV Hub will also come to the new Freeview Play service, which is set to roll out from next month. To mark the launch, ITV will debut new episodes of Family Guy, becoming the first public broadcaster to offer the popular cartoon on a video-on-demand service. In terms of timing, ITV says it's "looking forward to fully unveiling it later this autumn" -- this suggests that the company could follow a similar route to BBC iPlayer and launch public tests of the service before it becomes widely available to everyone.
