ITV has become the second British broadcaster to confirm that it is in talks to provide content to Joost, the internet television service set up by the founders of Skype.

A source at the network said that Joost, which is already in discussions with Channel 4, was an “impressive” service – adding that it was one of “a wide range” of parties to which ITV was talking, with regard to exploiting its content via the internet.

The confirmation coincides with reports that Joost, which is seeking to establish itself as a provider of commercial video content, has done a broad licensing deal with Viacom, the US media giant, which would give it access to hundreds of hours of programming from the company’s cable channels, including MTV and Comedy Central, as well as from Paramount studios.

The reported arrangement, details of which have not been disclosed, follows the collapse of similar talks between Viacom and YouTube, and comes in the same month that Viacom ordered the video-sharing site to take down more than 100,000 clips of its programming.

“We’re interested in distribution of our content on as many platforms as possible, provided we can operate in a secure environment,” Philippe Dauman, Viacom’s chief executive, said.

“This assures any potential partners that we’re open for business and that we’re able to enter into transactions with companies that respect our content and the considerations of our business.”

Mr Dauman told The Wall Street Journal that Joost had promised to protect Viacom’s copyrights, which had given the company the confidence to pursue the deal. The same issue led to talks with YouTube stalling.

The arrangement - which will cover both current and archival programming, including shows such as Beavis & Butthead - is likely to increase pressure on Google, which owns YouTube, to do a similar deal with another media company.

Google has been in talks with a number of major media companies about licensing their content, but several, including Viacom and NBC Universal, have complained that YouTube enables unauthorised copies of their content to be posted.

YouTube says it takes down copyrighted material when requested to do so by the owner, but is yet to announce a site-wide filtering service which would enable it to search out rogue content, as has MySpace, the social networking site which also offers video content.

Joost was set up last year by Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, who were also behind Kazaa, the file-sharing service, and will use a peer-to-peer network to show TV episodes with high quality resolution.

The technology behind the site, which is expected to become widely available in the middle of the year, will enable the company rapidly to increase the scale of the service without the need to invest in new infrastructure, its founders say.

In December Channel 4 became the first British broadcaster to make its entire catalogue available online, and ITV plans to launch a similar service by the end of March.

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