Virgin Media Player will carry “hundreds of hours” of on-demand TV from Living, Disney (NYSE: DIS), Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, National Geographic and - marking its long-awaited first online syndication deal - also from ITV.

(Update: ITV (LSE: ITV) tells paidContent:UK it is only licensing Virgin Media (NSDQ: VMED) Player for “archive” TV shows - in other words, don’t expect to watch last night’s Coronation Street on the new Virgin site.)

All Virgin has announced is a “beta trial”, which only XL TV subscribers will be able to register for - at time of writing Thursday morning, registration was not available (so why make the announcement?).

This is Virgin Media’s attempt to replicate its existing role of channel gateway or platform, from the cable TV world, in the on-demand world - its equivalent of Sky Player.

It already has a significant VOD advantage over BSkyB on the TV, with catch-up catalogue from all the main public broadcasters and others besides.

Virgin tells us: “Mobile versions of popular shows will be available to any mobile phone owner via the Virgin Media mobile portal. It’s 60p for 15 minutes, £1 for 30 minutes and £1.75 for 60 minutes.”

Despite competing efforts by YouTube, SeeSaw, Hulu, MSN and others to aggregate catch-up TV online in this way, right now it’s broadcasters themselves who control the online market. The likes of ITV, C4 and Five each keenly sell their own video ads on either their own sites or - in the case of C4 and Five - on YouTube and SeeSaw.

It’s notable that Virgin Media’s set of on-demand rights is not carrying over from its TV service to the web- and mobile-based Virgin Media Player. This would have been very helpful. And, though Virgin carries BBC catch-up under the iPlayer brand on TV, I think it’s unlikely to get BBC shows as on-demand, because the corporation is refusing to syndicate its shows to third parties.

Right now, Virgin Media and BT (NYSE: BT) Vision hold non-exclusive VOD rights to HBO shows - but, as part of the deal under which Sky will take exclusive HBO linear rights, it will also get exclusive VOD rights when those contracts expire, Sky tells paidContent:UK.