<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"ITV has said that it currently has &amp;quot;no plans&amp;quot; to agree content deals with video on-demand aggregators such as Hulu, YouTube, SeeSaw and MSN Video Player.  Speaking yesterday at The Guardian&amp;#039;s Changing Media Summit, ITV director of online and interactive Ben McOwen Wilson said that the firm instead wants to grow its own VOD service, ITV Player.  &amp;quot;We have no plans at present to do any deals with YouTube,&amp;quot; said McOwen Wilson. &amp;quot;We are following an ITV Player-led solution because we want to push our own platform as hard as we can. We enjoyed 180% growth in terms of usership of ITV Player last year.&amp;quot; ITV is adopting a much different strategy to the BBC, Channel 4 and Five, which have all done VOD deals with SeeSaw and the Google-owned YouTube. BBC Worldwide has also reached content agreements with BlinkBox and MSN Video Player, which launched UK-wide last week. However, some VOD platforms have manoeuvred around the ITV situation by doing deals with the Digital Rights Group, which handles many primetime ITV1 shows. Last November, reports emerged that US video on demand venture Hulu was close to agreeing a deal with ITV for the commercial public service broadcaster to take an equity stake in the platform&amp;#039;s UK launch. Despite acknowledging that Hulu has been very successful in the US, McOwen Wilson said that the British media market is a &amp;quot;different place&amp;quot;. He added: &amp;quot;It is much more consolidated, which mean there are fewer online locations than in the US, which users need to visit to get access to their favourite content - therefore there is less need for aggregators.&amp;quot; Speaking further about ITV&amp;#039;s strategy for VOD, McOwen Wilson said that the firm wants to push ITV Player to other platforms, including games consoles and smartphones. The approach could mean ITV following the BBC in launching versions of its catchup service for the Nintendo Wii and Sony PlayStation 3.  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tech/vod/news/a209567/itv-no-plans-for-youtube-hulu-deals/>