THE TIMES is to launch an internet television service this week, with the aim of boosting its online audience by supplying video news clips.

The service, called Times TV, will initially consist of news clips from third-party providers, but the newspaper plans to expand the service by encouraging its readers to contribute their own material — so long as it is newsworthy.

The identity of the news providers was not revealed, although it could include companies such as Reuters, the newswire service. It is not clear whether BSkyB, the broadcaster that is 38 per cent owned by News Corporation, parent company of The Times, will supply clips when the service is launched.

The initiative was announced by Les Hinton, executive chairman of News International, The Times’s British parent, as part of a plan to “triple our page impressions in the next few years for Times Online”. In May, Times Online generated 59.9 million page impressions.

The move comes after yesterday’s announcement by Channel 4 that it would enter the radio market by offering audio online.

Mr Hinton said that News International’s strategy was to “protect and extend” its newspapers by developing “online and mobile audiences”.

He said that The Sun, also owned by News International, had more than half a million subscribers who paid at least £5 a year to its online fantasy football, and that online poker on the Page 3 glamour website was already outperforming the original Page 3 site.

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