Disney channels coming soon on YouTube

Walt Disney Co and Google Inc's YouTube said on Monday they have reached a pact to offer consumers advertising supported premium short-form content on the hugely popular video-sharing site from today.

The deal will see videos from sports network ESPN from April and the Disney/ABC Television networks such as ABC Entertainment and SoapNet become available on YouTube from May. Disney Media Networks will have the option to sell its own advertising inventory within those channels.

The companies said that as part of the agreement, the ESPN Video Player will be integrated into ESPN's channel on YouTube and the sports network will also produce additional short-form content through YouTube's player. ESPN content that is available on the ESPN channel and player will not contain long-form content from its linear networks - such as cable television.