Project Canvas news roundup - 11 March

• 11 Mar - It was mentioned in our tweet-round-up of last week’s DTG (Digital TV Group) Summit, but Will at Broadcast has an article about the tensions between Canvas and the DTG.
• 4 Mar - Virgin Media has again objected to Project Canvas, as well the BBC Trust’s actions. From this Telegraph article:

• “Mr Berkett objects to proposals to force all broadcasters to use a single ‘Project Canvas’ brand controlled by the BBC and its partners, which he claims will penalise commercial rivals.
  “The BBC Trust has stubbornly ignored all requests to address our concerns by imposing safeguards to prevent the BBC emerging as de facto gatekeeper of the digital world.” he will say at the Cable Congress conference in Brussels. “This is a blatant demonstration that the Trust is incapable of regulating the BBC’s activities in an objective way.”

• 2 Mar - The Project Canvas site has published a “your questions answered” post. Questions included cover openness, how the EPG will work, & whether/how it Canvas clashes with HbbTV. The answers to the questions don’t cover too much though.
• 1 Mar - Talk Talk - already one of the six partners in Project Canvas - is looking to that involvement to become a quad player in the media-comms space. An offering off the back of Canvas, and a MVNO launch later this year, will cement Talk Talk in the TV space (remember it already owns Tiscali), and get them into the mobile space. The FT has the article (while The Reg has it for non-FT subs).  A few days earlier on the CPW earnings call CEO Dunstone said it is (was?) too early to say exactly how they would make use of Canvas c.f Tiscali (PaidContentUK article)  (Also worth noting, the plan was revealed during details of the demerging of Carphone Warehouse - from March 29 there will be two separate listed companies - New Carphone Warehouse, and Talk Talk. )
• 25 Feb - Broadcast point out the split screen interaction that Project Canvas will provide, for things like tweeting and other social network activity. Their article talks about the demo shown at trade show BVE. It’s not definite, but it sounds like the demo Erik Huggers has shown previously, including at a conference in Salford - this video on Yotube of the talk given before Christmas was posted earlier this week. Canvas-related info starts 14mins 20sec, while the demo itself starts at the 17mins 40sec mark.

And now a few bits of news from the vault - these were from back in late December last year, just after the BBC Trust gave its conditional approval to Project Canvas:

• Canvas is being given extra leniency by the BBC Trust with regards to costs incurred by the BBC. One of the approval conditions was the BBC exec would have to get approval from the Trust if it realistically expected the BBC costs to exceed 20% more than budget. Marie Bloomfield from Screen Digest says the normal approval figure is anything over 10%.
• Sky’s full statement against the Trust approval of Canvas can be found here at Paid Content UK. It includes “The key concern with Canvas is the leading role that the BBC wants to take in the project. …  There is no need for public money to be spent on replicating what’s set to be delivered through commercial investment.  …Yet again, this is nothing short of BBC mission creep”
• Geek.com has a post saying that the Trust’s approval of Canvas could led to BBC-branded set top boxes, but the source is as vague and uncredible as “industry watchers” speculating.