New Project Canvas costs see an increase

C21 Media and Guardian.co.uk both have articles covering new information on Project Canvas reportedly released by the BBC Executive today. C21 Media article is here. The Guardian article is here. We’ll update the post when the full info is released on the BBC Trust or BBC sites, but below are some of the points from the two reports:

• The total project cost, for the first four years, has been revised up to £115.6m.
• This would put the cost for each of the current 4 partners at £24.7mill, after a projected £17mill in cost recovery
• However the project is going to be opened up to 6 partners in total, which would bring the cost per each partner around the original forecast cost £16mill.
• These two new project partners could be non-public service broadcasters, a change to the BBC’s original plan for the partners to only be PSBs. (There is no change to the actual participation - from hardware producers to content providers - being open to all-comers.)

Update (14:30): The statement and all the relevant documents can be found here on the BBC Trust site. The Trust is soliciting  feedback on the revised proposed structure and cost until 18 November.