Project Canvas gets final BBC Trust approval
So it has taken some time since their very first proposal, but the BBC Executive yesterday (Friday, 25 June) had their plans for Project Canvas cleared by governing body the BBC Trust.
We’ll come back to some of the detail over the coming days, but in summary, the BBC is now allowed to continue to be involved in the initiative (which involves 6 other companies too, with a possible 7th to join later on too).
The Trust did impose some conditions on BBC involvement - all of which can be found in summary here at the BBC site - but there really wasn’t anything there that the BBC Exec wasn’t planning on doing already. The Trust’s conditions just ensure those plans are committed to by all companies in the venture, otherwise the BBC - and its cash - will need to drop out.
Below is a word cloud of two documents from Friday - the final conclusions from the BBC Trust (the top cloud), and those submissions made to the Trust after its provisional conclusions earlier this year that were not held as confidential (the bottom cloud). (Both word clouds made with Wordle.net). Both have had the terms “BBC” “Trust” and “Canvas” taken out.
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.
OFT clears Project Canvs
Breaking: The Office of Fair Trading has reportedly said Project Canvas does not qualify as a merger.
This leaves the initiative freer to progress (although it still needs final approval from the BBC Trust for the BBC’s continued involvement) having by-passed one big potential regulatory hurdle.
More as the OFT’s findings are published on their site.
Update: 15.47 - OFT’s media release is here. The key reason for their decision: none of the partners are contributing an existing business to the venture.
Related news roundup - Mar-Apr
It’s been a while since we’ve had a roundup of news from the worlds of IPTV & VoD that is related in some way to Project Canvas and its surrounds. Here are some things worth knowing:
- 12 April: Another social TV startup has been announced. Starling was launched at MIPTV in Cannes. Contagious has some details about the offering which is aiming to provide more structure than the current Twitter environment, but not as high entry costs as a more traditional walled garden of programmed content.
- 26 March: The regulatory environment around VoD continues to be added to: VoD will be co-regulated by Ofcom and the Association for TV on Demand (ATVOD). The two bodies have come out and said 150 VoD services must between them pay the £375,000 needed to finance the regulation. PaidContent:UK article.
- 26 March: FIVE’s owner RTL has said that potential commercial tie-ups with Channel 4 are being discussed again, seeing that the latter is to have a new chief exec in the form of David Abraham. The Guardian article.
- 18 March: ITV repeats its stance that it has no interest in syndicating its content to YouTube (like competitor broadcasters Channel 4 and FIVE have been doing for a while now). The Guardian article. There is also still no firm news about a ITV - Hulu deal of any sort for the UK market.
- 14 April: As we mentioned in yesterday’s blog post about pragmatic evidence against Canvas, Sky announced a deal with the biggest UK set top box manufacturer that will see Sky Player come to Humax boxes. The Guardian 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.)
Related news roundup - January
Some noteables from the IPTV/Vod/TV world for January 2010:
- 28 Jan - In Sky’s Dec quarter results call, it made no mention at all of a pull VoD service - something it had/has committed to launching sometieme in 2010. PaidContent:UK.
- 25/26 Jan - SeeSaw - the online VoD service that arose from Project Kangaroo :
- began the move from alpha testing to wider beta testing , eventually opening to 10,000 users over the next month - news is everywhere
- launched into the beta phase with content from 4oD and Five, in addition to the publicly announced BBC Worldwide content deal, leaving ITV as the only public service broadcaster it is not carrying. It has also announced deal with Digital Rights Group (DRG) and Perform
- will have Cadbury, Nivea & Sainsbury’s as launch advertisers - BrandRepublic story
- has appointed Video Initiatives as its sales hours - same BrandRepublic story / New Media Age says some of the ad inventory - Channel 4 and Five’s - will be sold by the broadcasters’ own sales teams. Seesaw was also, back in December, looking for a head of advertising
- Update - 17 Feb - SeeSaw today came out of invite-only beta, allowing anyone to access the site.
- 25 Jan - The BBC’s online spin-off of soap East Enders - E20 - racked up 1.7 million views in its first 2.5 weeks. E20 is available on both the EastEnders website, and iPlayer (although the views figure is not split out). BroadbandTVNews.
- 25 Jan - The Guardian has a good look at what newly appointed Channel 4 chief executive can (and cannot) bring to the broadcaster.
- 25 Jan - Research from Informa suggests that global IPTV penetration will be a 70million households by 2014 - representing 5% of total households. TechDigest.TV
- 21 Jan - BT has launched a new fibre network, with the aim of delivering 40Mbps connections to 10 million homes in the next two years - more info including price details & Virgin Media’s reactions over at The Guardian
- 20 Jan - YouTube is getting into live sport: it will livestream the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket tournament happening in March. For the UK, because the rights were with now-defunct Setanta, at the moment it means YouTube will be the only place to see the action. The deal includes everywhere but the US market, and gives Youtube exclusive online streaming rights. It’s not clear how much the deal is worth, or what the ad revenue split between the IPL and YouTube is. PaidContent:UK & Guardian articles.
- 15 Jan - The BBC Trust has launched a review of the BBC’s on-demand services. While the 4 services being reviewed are delivered via iPlayer - 7 day catchup via the internet, 7 day catchup via Virgin Media cable, live TV simulcasts, & podcasts - the review does not cover iPlayer itself. BroadbandTVNews.Anyone wanting to respond to the review, including a survey, can do so here at the BBC Trust site (the review closes 12 March).
- 15 Jan - The iPlayer usage stats for December were released - the PDF from the BBC is here - showing a continued steady big rise in usage. As TechRadar and NewTeeVee both point out, about 1 in 8 views of iPlayer content is now coming from non-PC based devices.
- 14 Jan - FreeSat have confirmed that the BBC iPlayer will come to Freesat HD general availability over the next few months. MediaWeek article.
- 4 Jan - The BBC continues to defend itself - this time with a report prepared by Deloitte that shows the corporation creates £7.6bn worth of value for the UK economy annually. The Guardian. On a related note, outgoing ITV chairman Michael Grade in a Guardian op-ed piece argues that the government needs to act to protect the British PSBs from overseas players.
Project Canvas gets approval from the BBC Trust
It was telegraphed yesterday on newspaper site after newspaper site , but this morning the BBC Trust confirmed that it has given its provisional approval to Project Canvas.
The Trust has attached some conditions to its approval of the venture. The below are copied directly from the BBC Trust press release available here:
Main conditions of provisional approval
The Trust proposes to place a number of conditions on the BBC’s participation in the joint venture. Many of these are designed to secure elements of the proposal where we saw particular public value as well as lessen negative market impact where possible. These conditions cover:
- Industry engagement – the core technical specification must be published well in advance of launch to allow all manufacturers to adapt to the Canvas standard. The BBC must report to the Trust within twelve months of final approval or within three months of launch, whichever is the sooner, and at regular intervals on its progress in achieving industry consensus around technical standards.
- Access to the platform for content providers – must be on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, with minimal technical requirements and content standards and access charges calculated on a cost recovery basis.
- Access for ISPs - any quality standards for ISPs should again be set and applied on a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory basis. This is designed to keep barriers to entry for ISPs to a minimum and avoid the proposal being linked to any one provider or service.
- Syndication – a Trust review, twelve months after launch, to assess what, if any, effects Canvas has on the partners’ incentives to syndicate their content to other platforms.
Other key conditions of the BBC’s involvement are designed to ensure public value:
- Free-to-air – it must always to be possible to access the Canvas platform without a subscription.
- Accessibility and usability – one year after launch, the BBC must report to the Trust on whether the proposed accessibility features, such as audio description, have been incorporated. At that point the Trust will also review signposting of content and parental controls, which we have asked Canvas to provide where possible.
- Cost – the BBC must return for further Trust approval should costs incurred by the Corporation exceed (or be expected to exceed) the Executive’s projections by more than 20 per cent in any one year.
Finally, there are some conditions to ensure compliance with the law:
- An independent audit must be carried out of relevant BBC research and development spending in order to verify that pre-launch Canvas-related BBC expenditure costs have been or will be shared equally between the partners.
- Where the BBC has already or proposes to frontload project spending by making initial commercial loans to the other Canvas partners, loans should also be available to the other or any new partners of the same creditworthiness on commercial terms.
- BBC involvement in Canvas must be kept operationally separate from its involvement in Freesat and Freeview.
Finally, a public consultation period on the provisional decision commences today, and closes on 2 February (after which time the Trust will make their final ruling concering the BBC’s involvement, in the spring).
A provisional approval from the BBC Trust?
We were hoping there’d be some news from the BBC Trust on Friday about their decision regarding Project Canvas. The Trust had a regular, scheduled meeting on Thursday, and in the past updates on the initiative have also tended to be right at the end of the week.
Friday came and went with no news, however this morning both the FT and The Guardian are reporting from “sources” that the BBC Trust is about to / has already approved Project Canvas.
The FT article is here, and says the project has gotten Trust approval, with some minor conditions.
The Guardian article is here, and says the project is being approved now, with some significant conditions.
Not surprisingly, the official Canvas site and twitter feed are staying quiet for now.
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A reminder too about our Twitter feed - @ProjectCanvasUK - where we’ll often post links/articles link the ones above quicker than a blog post here.
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Update - 13.00: PaidContent UK says the BBC Trust will publish their provisional conclusions on their site at 10am Tuesday (22nd).
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