Channel 4 (previously 4oD and All 4) is a

video on demand Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos, television shows and films Digital distribution, digitally on request. These multimedia are accessed without a traditional video playback device and a typica ...

service from Channel Four Television Corporation, free of charge for most content and funded by advertising. The service is available in the UK and Ireland; viewers are not required to have a TV licence—required for live viewing and the BBC iPlayer on-demand service—when watching on-demand services. The service offers a variety of programmes recently shown on

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...

, E4, More4, Film4 and E4 Extra and shorts, alongside exclusive content such as programming from

Adult Swim Adult Swim (stylized as dult swimand s is an American adult-oriented television programming block that airs on Cartoon Network which broadcasts during the evening, prime time, and Late-night television, late-night Dayparting, dayparts. T ...

. However some programmes and movies are not available due to rights issues. The service was originally available without registration, but free registration was later required. The service is available without advertising (except for live viewing) on payment of a subscription, under the name Channel 4+ (previously All 4+). The service launched on 16 November 2006 as 4oD (for "4 on Demand"). All 4 generated around 215 million long-form video views on all platforms where it is available in the first half of 2011, making Channel 4 the biggest commercial UK broadcaster in the video on-demand market during the period. On 30 March 2015, 4oD was merged into and renamed All 4. (References below to "All 4" before that date should be understood as including 4oD.) On 28 February 2019, All 4 was rebranded with a new logo, website design and app design. On 17 April 2023, All 4 rebranded as Channel 4, becoming the "first UK broadcaster to adopt one brand identity across its digital and linear channels".

Web platforms

Channel4.com

All 4 is the main source of on demand programmes from Channel 4, E4, and More4. The catch up service currently lasts 30 days, and the archive has thousands of hours of programming. By April 2009, the Internet version was fully available to Mac and Windows users with

Adobe Flash Player Adobe Flash Player (known in Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Google Chrome as Shockwave Flash) is a discontinuedExcept in China, where it continues to be used, as well as Harman for enterprise users. computer program for viewing multimedia ...

installed. The "catch-up" service offers content free of charge for 30 days after a programme's broadcast on Channel 4. As of 2011, not all content is available to Irish users, due to licensing restrictions; however, the majority of the programming is available. Live streaming of Channel 4 and its sister channels is not available outside the UK. Channel 4 relaunched 4oD on 31 August 2011. At the heart of the changes is 'My 4oD', allowing registered users to build playlists, schedule shows, maintain a record of what they have watched, save their favourites in a single place, and receive in-page reminders from Channel 4 whenever a new episode is available for them to watch. Other features include better full-page viewing and optimised site navigation during viewing. Since 2014, the service stops users with ad blocking software from watching videos on All 4.

Third party "box-set" content

During 2020 Channel 4 entered a new licensing deal with the Walt Disney Company for distributing a variety of older

20th Century Fox 20th Century Studios, Inc., formerly 20th Century Fox, is an American film studio, film production and Film distributor, distribution company owned by the Walt Disney Studios (division), Walt Disney Studios, the film studios division of the ...

programming as part of All 4's expanding "box set" feature. In June, '' Buffy the Vampire Slayer'' was introduced, followed by ''Angel'' in September 2020, and ''

Malcolm in the Middle ''Malcolm in the Middle'' is an American television sitcom created by Linwood Boomer for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series premiered on January 9, 2000, and ended on May 14, 2006, after seven seasons consisting of 151 episodes. The ...

'' in October 2020.

2023 rebrand

On 2 November 2022, Channel 4 announced plans to rebrand its on-demand service, All 4, as Channel 4. In a statement released by Channel 4, the change enabled it to become "the first UK broadcaster to adopt one brand identity across its digital and linear channels". It was also announced that their portfolio of channels will also align with the Channel 4 branding. It took place in Spring 2023.

Television platforms

Blu-ray players and televisions

An All 4 app for the Samsung Smart TV service was released on 22 March 2013.

Freesat

All 4 became available as part of

Freesat Freesat is a British free-to-air satellite television service, first formed as a joint venture between the BBC and ITV plc and now owned by Everyone TV (itself owned by all of the four UK Public broadcasting, public service broadcasters, BBC, ...

's second generation Free Time guide on 27 June 2013, offering the last seven days of programming integrated to the TV guide and access to the All 4 archive via the on demand section. As of 22 February 2018 All 4 will no longer be available on Freesat services.

Sky

All 4 was added to

Sky The sky is an unobstructed view upward from the planetary surface, surface of the Earth. It includes the atmosphere of Earth, atmosphere and outer space. It may also be considered a place between the ground and outer space, thus distinct from ...

On Demand On-demand or on demand may refer to: Manufacturing * Build-on-demand * Just-in-time manufacturing, a methodology for production * Print on demand, printing technology and business process in which new copies of a document are not printed until ...

service on 18 March 2013.

Virgin Media

All 4 is available on

Virgin Media Virgin Media Limited is a British telecommunications company which provides telephone, television and internet services in the United Kingdom. Its headquarters are at Green Park in Reading, England. It is owned by Virgin Media O2, a 50:50 ...

cable television Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with bro ...

service. This platform offers programmes for 7 days after broadcast and Virgin has exclusive use of most of Channel 4 archive which is free on XL package. In 2007, Virgin Media announced plans to offer high definition programming through All 4 but no further information has been released.

YouView

All 4 was one of four services available at the launch of YouView in July 2012. At launch, the All 4 app contained options to resume watching recent programmes and browse by most popular, categories, collections, and A-to-Z, but lacked a search function and contained non-skippable adverts. It is also available for EE TV and TalkTalk Plus TV customers, as these services run on YouView.

Game consoles

PlayStation 3

All 4 was released on 14 December 2010 on

PlayStation 3 The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE). It is the successor to the PlayStation 2, and both are part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. The PS3 was first released on ...

via the PlayStation Network. This service was accessible through ps3.channel4.com, but has now been replaced with a native app. The app version of All 4 for PlayStation 3 was released on 20 June 2013, allowing access to the full All 4 library. All 4 on PS3 is free and ad-funded with pre-, mid- and post-roll video ads being sold and served by Channel 4. The service closed on PS3 systems on 31 January 2021.

PlayStation 4

The All 4 app was launched on PlayStation 4 on 23 December 2015.

PlayStation 5

All 4 is now available on the PlayStation 5.

Xbox 360

On 5 October 2011, it was announced that All 4 would be made available to all Xbox Live Gold members. The service also integrates with the

Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the Xbox (console), original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox#Consoles, Xbox series. It was officially unveiled on MTV on May 12, 2005, with detail ...

Kinect Kinect is a discontinued line of motion sensing input devices produced by Microsoft and first released in 2010. The devices generally contain RGB color model, RGB cameras, and Thermographic camera, infrared projectors and detectors that map dep ...

controller. All 4 was added to the Xbox Live on 21 December 2011. All content on Xbox Live contains ads which cannot be skipped.

Xbox One

On 8 November 2013,

announced that the All 4 app would be available on

Xbox One The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third console in the Xbox#Consoles, Xbox series. It was first released in North America, parts of Europe, Austra ...

when it launched on 22 November 2013. In August 2019, the app was removed from the Microsoft Store.

Mobile platforms

Android devices

An All 4 app for the Android operating system was released on 5 February 2013. Android version 5.0 or greater is required. The service does not support devices it detects as rooted.

iOS devices

An All 4 iPad app launched on 3 May 2011, offering a 30-day catch-up service. , this app was compatible with iPad with iOS 3.2 or later. The design of the app was elegant and intuitive but received unfavourable reviews because of technical issues and its use of commercial breaks. Since 2013, download and offline watching is supported. An All 4 app for the

iPhone The iPhone is a line of smartphones developed and marketed by Apple that run iOS, the company's own mobile operating system. The first-generation iPhone was announced by then–Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, at ...

and

iPod Touch The iPod Touch (stylized as iPod touch) is a discontinued line of iOS-based mobile devices designed and formerly marketed by Apple Inc. with a touchscreen-controlled user interface. As with other iPod models, the iPod Touch can be used as a po ...

allowing a 30-day catch-up was released on 2 September 2011, along with an update to the iPad app. Both apps support search functionality to enable users to navigate the catch-up and archive content. They can both be browsed in 3G, but video playback is still only available with a Wi-Fi signal to "ensure the quality of the viewing experience isn't affected". The app also links to Channel 4's content on

iTunes iTunes is a media player, media library, and mobile device management (MDM) utility developed by Apple. It is used to purchase, play, download and organize digital multimedia on personal computers running the macOS and Windows operating s ...

, allowing programmes to be purchased.

Windows Phone

On 13 November 2013, a native All 4 app was launched for mobile phones running the Windows Phone 8 platform.

Computer platforms

The service was originally available as a

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

-only desktop program for downloading shows similar to BBC iPlayer Desktop. Following the launch of the web version of 4oD in April 2009, the desktop client continued to allow content from outside the catch-up window to be downloaded. The Kontiki based program which offered Windows Media Video downloads was closed in July 2009. The desktop client offered programming from other broadcasters such as FX and National Geographic as well as movies from

. A Download To Own (DTO) or "Buy" feature was also available on selected content, allowing users to purchase a programme and keep it for as long as they wish. On 17 December 2012, Channel 4 and

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

released a dedicated All 4 application for

Windows 8 Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012, made available for download via Microsoft ...

. The move saw Channel 4 become the first major UK broadcaster to support the operating system with a native app.

Exclusive programming

Shorts (2014–present) * ''

Walter Presents Walter Presents is a video-on-demand service of the UK's Channel 4, part of its streaming platform. Launched on 3 January 2016, it specialises in foreign-language drama and comedy with English subtitles. It is named after Walter Iuzzolino, w ...

'' (2016–present) – foreign language titles * '' The Island'' (2016–present) * '' Hunted America'' (2017–present) * '' Don't Hug Me I'm Scared'' (2022–present) * MASHED (2013–present)

References

External links

* {{Navboxes, list1= {{Channel Four Television Corporation {{UK Based TV on demand {{Media in the United Kingdom, television {{VOD services Channel 4 British entertainment websites Television websites Video on demand services 2006 establishments in the United Kingdom Internet properties established in 2006 PlayStation 4 software TvOS software Streaming television in the United Kingdom