UK broadcaster Channel 4 has launched a premium and ad-supportedmusic video download service. Boasting a library of over 20,000 videos, the offering is little more than a link through to Stockholm-based MusicBrigade, a European music site that earlier this year offered a similar service to Sweden’s Aftonbladet newspaper. But the site adds social media features allowing registered users to find folks with similar tastes, create and share playlists and rate tracks.

SEE ALSO: Last.fm, Channel 4 Radio Partner On User-Generated Chart Show

The free service, available to non-registered users, streams videos on the website using an embedded player, preceded by a short pre-roll advert. Downloads can be purchased for around £1.99 ($4) each in WMV format with DRM minus ads, while a monthly £7.99 subscription gives access to the whole library in higher quality. MusicBrigade also offers over 1.5 million non-video music tracks in WMA format available at £0.79 ($1.56) or £7.90 ($15.60) for an album. Channel 4 said it wanted to become “one of the UK’s most powerful music brands”. Announcement, blog post.

Jupiter digital music analyst Mark Mulligan blogs: “Currently they don’t appear to have any advertisers on board and all videos pre-roll only with the C4 logo.  With other key music video offerings (e.g. Yahoo, AOL) also ad supported and the huge ‘market conditioning’ effect that YouTube has had, the question is whether online music video will ever actually to be able to evolve as paid format. There is a pretty strong argument that online video should be considered in similar way to music video on TV.”