Related news roundup - June 6
Link-worthy news from the past week from the world of TV, VoD, IPTV:
- Sky announced it’s Sky+ Anytime capabilities - true pull VoD over the internet - will be switched on in Q4, with staff trials currently underway. Telegraph article.
- A deal between Sky & Virgin Media was announced, in which Sky will buy the latter’s TV channels including Virgin 1 (to be re-branded or closed), Living, Bravo & Challenge. Carriage of Sky 1 and Sky Arts on Virgin were also part of the deal, as was some on demand content from Sky. Broadband TV News article here.
- PaidContent UK has it that YouTube is considering linking out to the VoD sites of broadcasters, in a similar way to the feature BBC iPlayer announced last week. The article notes it’s all very early days though.
Canvas news roundup - May 31
So since the news last week that the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) won’t investigate Project Canvas as a merger, there’s been some more information both about Project Canvas:
- Tim Bradshaw (his twitter) at the FT has it that a final brand name being considered from the shortlist for the initiative is ‘YouView’. FT article here. One of the Intellectual Property Office marks referred to in the article is here at the IPO site.
- The same article has the project partners conceding that a likely revised launch date to consumers is spring 2011, rather than end of 2010 as originally hoped for, given the delays caused by regulatory approval.
- One part of the advertising duties for Project Canvas has been awarded, to agency Saint@RKCR/Y&R. The agency will look after the digital advertising for the project (while it wasn’t explicitly mentioned, chances are high that this includes the consumer-facing website too). The rest of the advertising - which presumably means the offline advertising and the strategic work - is still out to pitch. Campaign Live article.
- Two days after the OFT’s decision, chairman of TalkTalk - one of the Canvas partners - Charles Dunstone had a piece in the Guardian defending the initiative. In it he admits there have been differences over the strategic direction of the project at times.
- Post the OFT approval for Canvas, Sky’s COO Mike Darcey has come out and said he believes BBC & ITV knew how to work the regulator, based on their experience with the blocked Project Kangaroo. Telegraph article.
- Sky’s director of on-demand Griff Parry has repeated that Sky are not altogether ruling out appearing on Project Canvasas as a platform (and re-iterated that it is the BBC’s involvement that Sky objects to). TechRadar article.
- Channel Five appointed Capablue to handle Five’s involvement in Canvas, including strategy and technical requirements. NMA article.
Pushes to show Canvas is redundant
Potential competitors continue to give food for thought to the BBC Trust and its final Project Canvas ruling.
From its first submission to the Trust’s public consultations Sky’s view has always been that there is no need for a publicly-funded IPTV standards project (although now of course the BBC is just one of seven contributors overall - but that has not lessened Sky’s protests), and that the market if left alone will develop its own products, and de facto standards. What is significant however is that in the last few weeks Sky has been busy turning the theory into hard evidence - which they’ll no doubt be able to wave in the BBC Trust’s face - and striking deals to bring video on demand to the TV screen through third party TV & set top box (STB) manufacturers. Deals struck so far include 3View, Cello, and one last week with Humax, the UK’s biggest Freeview STB provider. (Humax are also one of Project Canvas’s ’supporters’.)
Yesterday, a ‘David’ added their voice to Sky’s ‘Goliath’ protests. 3View is the maker of a STB that offers HD & SD Freeview channels as well as on demand content such as BBC iPlayer and, yes, Sky Player (the box will be available from the end of May, and will retail for £299 - it is not yet clear how the additional pricing for Sky Player will work). MD John Donovan has said a few interesting things to Digital Spy including the soundbite “”We do not understand what Canvas’s remit will be and we do not subscribe to the belief that Canvas will provide something the commercial market can’t. We have proved that we can do it.”, and his belief that Canvas will likely be killed by the OFT/Competition Commission in the same way that Kangaroo was (as well as the vague possibility of legal action). It is a convincing story: small privately owned technology company already offering a product that consumers want, but one that will be duplicated - and made redundant ultimately because of Canvas’ size - come any eventual launch of Canvas STBs. Enough of a story for the BBC Trust to listen, and consider.
Update - 18 May - I’ve expanded on these thoughts somewhat over in this blog post here.
Project Canvas news update - 24 March
Quite a few noteworthy items from the last few days around Project Canvas:
- 22 March - The project announced that Arqiva has joined as the seventh partner to the venture. (Arqiva is the communications infrastructure company; it has a share in Freeview, and it also launched SeeSaw, the VoD project that came out of the defunct Project Kangaroo). News release here (PDF). Arqiva have made no secret of their desire to bring SeeSaw to the TV.
- 22 March - At the same time, it was announced that Project Canvas made a submission (on its own initiative) to OFT (the Office of Fair Trading). The goal is to satisfy OFT that the venture is not any form of merger. Post on the official Canvas site here. The submission has triggered a consultation. There is a page here on the OFT site, but it is not clear how to comment, or who is eligible to comment. Comments close on April 7.
- It was mentioned in an article (which we can’t relocate!) that the BBC Trust’s final ruling on the BBC involvement would be delayed from the spring target - apparently tied to the OFT consultation - but we can’t find any official mention of this. (Do you know more? Drop us an email - ProjectCanvasUK@gmail.com) (Update - C21Media & TechRadar are 2 sites that mention the delayed final ruling.)
- 23 March - From the IPTV World Forum, Julian Clover (from Broadband TV News) tweeted this: “Halton: Canvas in ‘private discussions’ with HbbTV to ‘take two programmes into alignment’ ”
- 18 March - BSkyB made public its full submission to the BBC Trust’s final consultation on Canvas. It is available here as a PDF. PaidContent:UK has their usual good summary.
- 17 March - BSkyB COO Mike Darcy argues in The Guardian Sky’s main objections again (that the market will develop standards, shephered by the industry body DTG (Digital TV Group), & that the BBC should not be using license fee money) and also says that BT could be one of the biggest (unfair) beneficiaries of the BBC money, with Canvas boosting it’s ailing BT Vision product.
- 23 March - Presumably in response to Darcy’s piece, perennial supporter Michael Cornish, CEO of VoD provider Blinkbox, has a piece in the Guardian pushing the benefit to end consumers of an open standard. (On this note, the PR guys must be very happy - check out all the tweets that mention the whole takeaway of “great for consumers” alongside the article link.)
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.
Sky criticises the BBC for Canvas, again
Still to grok this properly, but for those coming here via search in particular:
- The FT this morning ran an article covering Sky’s criticisms of the BBC’s involvement in Project Canvas. The article is here. It’s based on Sky’s submission to the second and latest BBC Trust consultation on Canvas. (Sky incidentally did the same thing with their response to the initial consultation - released it to the media & then published on their own site. Their full response hasn’t been published yet, but it will likely be here on their news page when it is.)
- Richard Halton, project director of Canvas, has just published a response here on the BBC Internet blog, on behalf of all the Canvas partners (so, BBC, ITV, BT, FIVE).
Update - 18.29: Here is Sky’s full submission to the BBC Trust’s second consultation - PDF file here.
Canvas & related news roundup - 25 Aug
In Project Canvas news roundup:
- Digital Spy have a Q&A with BBC’s director of IPTV Richard Halton here. The resulting article is here (in which Halton restates the 2010 launch aim).
- We mentioned it on Twitter when it happened, but early last week, Sky hit out again at the BBC Trust over its handling of the Project Canvas consultation - FT article here. Sky’s two main issues: that the Trust has not submitted Canvas to a full public value test, and that the 5 weeks between the release of the further detailed info and the close of the consultation period (Sep 1) was vastly insufficient.
In VOD & IPTV-related news for the last few weeks:
- Channel 4 is to run a week of 3D programmes in autumn. 3D glasses will be available from Sainsbury’s. The programmes include unspecified movies, and footage of the Queen’s coronation.
- Speculation continues around a UK launch for Hulu: The Tele yesterday on its site ran two different articles: one claiming ITV is signing up imminently including exclusive rights on a few of its programmes; the second saying no content partners have been signed (and also that Channel 4 is reportedly going to start showing full length episodes on YouTube); both saying a 2010 launch is the earliest possible. PaidContent points out that no one at Hulu itself (or any of the potential content providers) has ever come out and given timing objectives around the UK launch.
- Blinkbox adds BBC Worldwide content. Some shows will be free/ad-supported while others will be paid (Broadband TV news article).
- ITV will launch ITV1 HD on Freeview, starting with London by end of 2009 - Broadcast Now article.
- A consumer survey by Deloitte & Yougov has found more than half of people wouldn’t watch more VOD even if they had a faster, more reliable broadband connection. 29% said they didn’t see the point in watching TV online. Media Guardian article here.
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Related news roundup - 2 August
Once more into the breach of VOD/IPTV/regulation/general video news from the last fortnight:
- Arqiva, the broadcast & radio infrastructure provider, was confirmed to have purchased the assets of the Project Kangaroo VOD project. The Guardian (article - 24 July) has the purchase price at about £8million and covering the hardware, software technology, related IP, and the intended to be consumer-facing “See Saw” brand name. PaidContentUK (article - 24 July) has more info from Arqiva’s strategy director, saying the purchase is a “natural progression” for them, that the offering will be one to consumers, and that they are currently busy actually doing content deals. NMA (article - 31 July) says that Arqiva has it rumoured to have appointed Pierre-Jean Sebert as CEO of the new Kangaroo. The article says that Sebert for the last 3 years has been director of the rights negotiation and multimedia channel development at Reel Enterprises.
- Microsoft UK got a lot of coverage of its announcement that it will launch a free-to-view VOD service, showing archive content from BBC Worldwide. It’s launching with (just) 350 hours of programming - shows include Peep Show, Hustle & Hotel Babylon. (Independent article here - 30 July). Pre-roll ads will be used to monetise (with launch ads all being bought by GroupM agencies including MEC & Mediacom - TheRegister article).
- ITV has closed its future technology department. The department, headed by Simon Fell, was involved in ITV’s launch of HD & mobile & online services (including those ads to be inserted into VOD clips layed over white/blank spaces) (article from BrandRepublic).
- BT Vision continues to struggle to acquire new customers in any sizeable numbers. From Broadband TV News (article here) after accounting for inactive customers[(I'm not sure what BT are defining as an "inactive"] they have added just 10,000 new customers for the quarter ending June 30.
- Sky will launch a true pull VOD offering to its HD customers next year, according to Paid Content UK - article here. (HD customers because the HD set top boxes have the ethernet connection needed.) Still with Sky, its like-for-like profit rose by 4% year on year (the total profit rise was much larger for the year to July, due to much less of the ITV stake writedown occuring in the last financial year than the previous one). Sky added 124,000 new customers in the last quarter. Telegraph article is here.
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Project Canvas news roundup - 05 July
A collection of all things directly related to Project Canvas from the last two weeks:
- TechRadar: BSkyB’s (Sky’s) director of strategic product development, Gerry O’Sullivan, confirmed that they are definitely still interested in what opportunities Canvas could present them. Not too surprising, especially given the Canvas spec is understood to also include some way of having paid content in addition to the bulk free content. O’Sullivan speaking at the Intellect Consumer Electronics conference after seeing a demo of the service: ‘ “I mean to be quite honest I’ve learned more from listening to Erik [Huggers] about Canvas today than I’ve ever heard before.” ‘.
- At the Intellect Consumer Electronics conference this week, the BBC’s Canvas point man apparently showed a demo of the service. If anyone was there, get in touch - we’d love to hear a description of what was shown.
- At TechRadar: One thing that is available from the conference is a transcript of a short video promo explaining Canvas, also shown by Huggers. It’s not clear whether the promo was made internally, or by one of the ad agencies thought to be have been pitching for the account (it’s also not publicly known if a winner for the pitch was ever decided, and whether there’s an agency currently working on how to communicate Canvas to the public).
- TechRadar: Still at the same Intellect conference, Sony UK head Steve Dowdle has said the UK focus of the Canvas standards worries him, citing the figure of 4% global market share that the UK makes up.
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The BSkyB objection
Sky yesterday was circulating its submission to the BBC Trust’s consultation on Project Canvas, and it received a lot of coverage.
Julian at Broadband TV News has a nice short but thorough summary of Sky’s objections (an even shorter summary: “everything”).
As we tweeted about late yesterday, Canvas issued a response.
The response reads as follows:
“The enormous consumer benefits that internet-powered TV can bring should not be restricted to paying customers. An open, standards-based platform, that enables a far greater range of content providers to enter the market, will be good for content owners and good for consumers - who gain a subscription-free alternative.”
“Freeview and Freesat transformed digital TV, and showed what standards-based platforms can do for audiences and the industry. Canvas has the potential to do the same for the next generation of TV, bringing content on-demand from a huge range of providers into the living room, all for a one-off fee. Access to the Canvas platform would be open to any third-party, including Sky.”
The BBC Trust also issued a statement:
“In assessing the BBC Executive’s application to join the Project Canvas joint venture, the Trust has followed the processes set out in the BBC’s Charter and Agreement. The Trust’s rigorous assessment will include consideration of both the public value and market impact of the proposal. The Trust has already concluded a seven-week period of public consultation and a second period of public consultation is also planned.”
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