BBC-backed joint venture to bring video on demand to Freeview and Freesat-enable

[khurramdar]

Project Canvas set for launch within 12 months


BBC-backed joint venture to bring video on demand to Freeview and Freesat-enabled TV sets sights on consumer launch

Friday 26 February 2010


Project Canvas, the BBC-backed joint venture to bring video on demand to Freeview and Freesat-enabled TV sets, should be up and running within the next 12 months.

The venture, also backed by ITV, Channel 4, Channel Five and BT, will be targeting the UK's 10 million Freeview households as a starting point, said Marc Watson, chief executive officer of BT Vision.

Speaking to the Media Summit conference in London yesterday Watson added that the open technical standards for Project Canvas should be published this summer, so anyone wishing to design applications or set-top boxes can get working, and that BT, as a leading partner, would be hoping to substantially increase its appeal as a triple provider of phone, internet and VoD content via the service.

David Pemsel, ITV's group marketing director, said that all the project's partners were "on the same page" and that a key aspect was that they would devise and own the service's electronic programme guide as a crucial navigation tool and source of data on audience preferences.

"There is a brand, and we are beginning to work, full steam ahead, towards a consumer launch," Pemsel said, an indication that the new executive team at ITV are in support.

Watson said the operation would allow for both free-to-air and pay-TV content and that it would also make money by enhanced advertising rates, through adverts carefully targeted at interested viewers.

He added that a management group, called The Venture, would run the platform in a neutral, non-discriminatory way, and that should BSkyB â€" which has voiced strong objections to Project Canvas, alleging anti-competitive motives â€" wish to take part, it would apply to this body, which is not influenced by individual corporate considerations.

But Mark Selby, vice president of industry collaborations for Nokia, was doubtful whether Project Canvas would succeed, because it was being driven by companies as a solution to their problems rather than tapping into the needs and demands of consumers.

"To succeed, any venture has to pass the PSSS test. It must solve a problem, it has to be simple to use, be scaleable and sustainable," he said.

The acid test is whether there is a mass market for internet-delivered programmes watched on television screens.

BT is also going to have to invest heavily to provide sufficient superfast broadband infrastructure to give consumers the bandwidth necessary to watch TV shows online, while not disrupting its standard internet customers concerned with a reliable service to their home computers