YouTube will soon be available on mobile phones and television screens after the video-sharing company owned by Google, the internet search and advertising giant, began talks with Verizon, the US telecoms company, that are expected to lead to a joint venture.

The two companies have been in talks for the past month about adding YouTube to the V-cast mobile television service offered by Verizon Wireless, the joint venture between Verizon and Vodafone. It is also expected that Verizon will offer services provided by YouTube on its DSL television business, which is growing across America.

Sources close to Verizon told The Times last night that talks between the phone company and YouTube were unlikely to be completed for at least two weeks.

The impending deal marks a significant development in YouTube’s rapid rise to popularity among its millions of users and prowess in the e-commerce field. Transporting the service from the computer screen to the television and the mobile phone will boost the advertising revenue that Google will be able to reap from the company.

The Verizon deal is expected to serve as a springboard for YouTube, which has sounded out several US mobile phone operators about a joint venture. The video-sharing company has held exploratory talks with Vodafone about a similar deal in the UK. Those discussions were described by an insider as very preliminary.

American mobile phone services are several steps behind those available in Britain. Few devices offer internet access and video watching is virtually unheard of. However, YouTube is very popular in the US, with more than 27.6 million people visiting the sight last month. The service was voted “invention of the year” by Time magazine, beating a cancer treatment and other life-saving products.

The web service, which features an abundance of teenagers miming to pop songs in their bedrooms, was bought by Google last month for $1.65 billion (£870 million).

Neither Verizon nor YouTube would comment about the talks.

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