Canvas news roundup - May 31

Posted by andrew pascoe on May 31, 2010 · View Comments 

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.

Filed under BSkyB, Marketing & promotion, OFT, Regulation, Talk Talk, Venture partners · Tagged with

OFT clears Project Canvs

Posted by andrew pascoe on May 19, 2010 · View Comments 

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.

Filed under Canvas workings, OFT, Regulation · Tagged with

Project Canvas news update - 24 March

Posted by andrew pascoe on March 24, 2010 · View Comments 

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.)

Filed under Arqiva, BSkyB, BT, Blinkbox, OFT · Tagged with

Update to related news post from last week

Posted by andrew pascoe on May 31, 2009 · View Comments 

‘Twas remiss of us not to make note of one particular item in the related news update from Friday. It’s an item to do with Project Kangaroo, the proposed VOD joint venture between ITV, Channel 4 and BBC Worldwide.

As we all know, in early February, the Competition Commission (part of the OFT) prohibited Kangaroo from going ahead, on the grounds that it lessened competition in the video on demand (VOD) market here in the UK.

Last Friday the Commission published the draft of it’s final undertakings on the matter. There are three main parts:

  • The BBC, BBC Worldwide, Channel 4 or ITV will not acquire any VOD activity from any of the other three parties (without prior permission from the Commission);
  • No senior management involved in the VOD activities at one party will be allowed to go and work with VOD at another of the parties (without prior permission from the Commission); and
  • Both of the above will be in effect for 5 years.

While each of the 3 parties have alread agreed to the undertakings, the Commission is accepting any public submissions on them until Monday 8 June.

The full document  is available here at the CC’s site (as a PDF), and Paid Content UK have a good post here.

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Filed under OFT, Project Kangaroo, Regulation, Related news · Tagged with ,