Apple has rolled out its video-on-demand service in the UK, in a bid to replicate its dominance in online music on screens small and large.

Programming from ABC Studios, Disney Channel, and Viacom's MTV, Nickelodeon and Paramount Comedy units will be available online for £1.89 an episode from the group’s iTunes store, the group said today.

In a move that could boost uptake of the TV service, Apple is also expected to launch an upgraded iPod next week, adding to its hugely successful range of digital media players with wide- or full-screen version.

David C. Bailey, the Goldman Sachs analyst, said: “The product announcement is likely to include a full line-up of revamped iPods with significantly greater functionality at current price points, including the much-anticipated full screen video iPod.”

Apple's TV service was launched in the US two years ago but has delivered mixed results, largely due to a shortage of material, analysts have suggested. The UK version will be launched with just 28 programmes. In contrast, Apple's music store, which acounts for as much as 80 per cent of the market, offers millions of tracks.

Available content will include episodes from series including Lost, Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy and Ugly Betty.

Users of the service will be able to watch downloaded programmes on home computers, the latest generation of iPods and on TV screens through the Apple TV set-top box.

Apple said that content will be available in “near-DVD quality”.

Apple faces a host of competitors in online video, including a rival download service from Amazon.com, the largest internet retailer.

From next month, BitTorrent, the internet distribution group, plans to offer television programmes and films for free as streamed videos – which can be watched live but not stored – supported by advertising.

Similar peer-to-peer models, which harness users' PCs as a distribution network, have been developed by Babelgum and Joost.

The BBC, meanwhile, recently unveiled a test version of its iPlayer, a piece of software that allows computer users to view past corporation programming on demnd and which Mark Thompson, the BBC's director-general, has called "as big a revolution as the introduction of colour television''.

Screen Digest, the analyst, predicts that the UK download-to-own video market will be worth £65 million a year by 2011.

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