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.
Related news roundup - 12 Feb
So, as the saying almost goes, it’s been a long time between IPTV/VoD drinks here at the blog. Below are some news clips to do with all things VoD & IPTV from February so far. Over the weekend we’ll post a backlog of related news items (from the ‘not so fresh’ bookmarks, all the way back to Dec), and we’ll be back early next week with all the coverage of the DTG’s submission to the BBC Trust - where they claim Canvas is being developed as a ‘parallel standard’ to the DTG’s own work (if you’re not aware, this could have big implications - it is the DTG after all who is supposed to be helping the Project Canvas group develop the Canvas standards).
- 9 Feb - Tubefilter has a look at the possible reasons why Hulu is getting involved in original web series (Simon Fullers’ ‘If I can dream’)
- 10 Feb - Freeview’s upcoming ad campaign will focus on the HD part of Freeview HD, and not mention the internet connectivity of the Freeview HD boxes, nor any specific connected TV opps like Samsung’s iPlayer syndication - Broadband TV News. And a survey commissioned by Freeview suggests that 360,000 Sky+ HD households are “likely” to switch to Freeview HD - Guardian article. Lastly, Freeview is solidly entertaining the possibility of 3D channels being available on its platform in the future - possibly in 5 years. Broadband TV News.
- 10 Feb - VAST is a new template for video adserving that aims to standardise video ads around on demand content online & boost advertiser adoption. It’s backed by the IAB, both in the US and here in the UK - and the IAB Video Council here has all the big adservers (except Atlas) and most of the big video content providers (4, ITV, Sky, et al). BrandRepublic blog.
On a related note, the IAB UK Video Council also have a pretty active community over at their site here. - 10 Feb - On a related note, New Media Age reports that ITV & Channel 4 have cut their online video rates to boost uptake - perhaps by as much as half.
- 5 Feb - Channel 4 is wanting to start selling pre-rolls alongside its contet on BT Vision, the IPTV offering from BT. IPTVNews
- 4 Feb - In the US, Hulu’s ‘ad selector’ ad placement - the one where the viewer gets to select which brand they’ll see ads from during the program - has been chosen as best online video ad unit, by Publicis unit VivaKi. MediaWeek article
- 3 Feb - TellyLinks is a new consumer offering that attempts to capitalise on second screen interest, by showing viewers, on the TellLinks site, links that are relevant to the program being watched on the TV screen . It’s run by Jeff Henry a former ITV Consumer MD. Guardian article here. Its first public trial - an episode of Numbers on Five - didn’t go so well, with the site crashing (one blog post on that night here).
- 1 Feb - Views of Virgin Media VoD service increase 50% year on year, to a total of 750m for 2009. VoD is used by 59% of Virgin’s 3.9mill TV customers. Media Guardian.
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).
Project Canvas news roundup - 14 Dec
All things Project Canvas from the last few weeks:
- 14 Dec: The BBC continues its charm offensive with an article about Project Canvas with future media and technology controller Erik Huggers in The Indpendent here.
- 3 Dec: The Project Canvas partners have launched a dedicated site for the initiative: ProjectCanvas.info . The BBC Internet Blog post here (from Richard Halton, project director). There is also a Twitter account - @canvasinfo (albeit a bit light on currently).
- 2 Dec: Freesat is looking at using Project Canvas standards to deliver progressive HD on-demand downloads . TechRadar article here.
- 25 Nov: Erik Huggers, at The Media Festival, has warned that Canvas boxes might not go on sale until 2011 (instead of the original target of 2010) if approval from the BBC Trust does not come by the end of this year. The Telegraph article here.
- 25 Nov: A provisional conclusion on Project Canvas is still hope to be delivered before this year is out, the BBC Trust has told Paid Content UK. Blog post here.
- 24 Nov: Sky, in its third submission to the BBC Trust, again criticised Project Canvas: specifically the BBC’s involvement; and that the relaxed condition of becoming a partner in the project - no longer is it only PSBs allowed - still does not practically allow any organisation to join up because of the high cost of partnership. Guardian article here. Sky’s submission document here (PDF - 85kb).
- 13 Nov: Sky & Virgin agree there is no need for Project Canvas - at the C21 Media conference. PaidContentUK post here.
- 11 Nov: Ben Bradshaw, culutre secretary, has been urged by the House of Lords communication committee to “strong arm” the Competition Commission into approving Project Canvas (so it does not suffer the same fate as Kangaroo) . Broadcast article here. Digital Spy article here.
- 10 Nov: Richard Waterworth has been promoted to the new ITV position of platform marketing, covering Project Canvas as well as itv.com. Marketing Week article here.
Canvas news roundup - 26 Oct
Directly related to Canvas:
- Oct 12: Sky once again publicly released its submission to the BBC Trust - this time it was their response to the second consultation on Canvas. Unsurprisingly Sky’s views aren’t a ringing endorsement - or any endorsement - of the Project. Our blog post here has the relevant links including the full Sky submission, and a response from the BBC on behalf of all the Project Canvas partners.
- Oct 8: It was announced (at Mipcom) that Canvas is trying to work with HbbTV (the Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV initiative - a ‘European Canvas’ of sorts, at least in result if not structure) IPTV News article here.
- Sep 24: The Digital TV Group (DTG) had its first open meeting about Project Canvas. We’ve only been able to find one wrap-up of the day, from Informitv here, and it is less than glowing. Definitely worth a read.
About VOD & IPTV more generally:
- Oct 21: It’s increasingly looking like VOD poster-child Hulu will introduce paid access of some form in 2010. Most likely is it will be for some form of premium access, with the bulk of the site and recent shows remaining ad supported. B&C article here.
- Oct 20: The BBC Trust has rejected the proposal from BBC management to create Open iPlayer. The reason given? The mix of public and commercial aspects of its current state made it too complex to evaluate. This was the initiative that was originally know as Project Marquee, and concerned a single gateway site for public service broadcasters’ VoD efforts. The actual full proposal was never made public due to cited commercial confidentiality reasons. First found via article here at BroadcastNow. Plenty of coverage at Google News.
- Oct 15: Channel 4 & YouTube announced a deal that will see all of their original shows put up YouTube in their entirety, supported by ads. The deal sees Channel 4 able to sell YouTube inventory beyond just their own shows too, and the rumour is that C4 keep the majority of sales revenue. First found via TechCrunch UK. Plenty of coverage at Google News.
Don’t forget too - a lot of the above news we mention via Twitter as and when it’s happening - @ProjectCanvasUK .
DTG’s Project Canvas meeting - tomorrow
Update: Just so it doesn’t escape anyone’s attention - especially those coming from Google searches - this meeting took place on 24 Sep, and is no longer upcoming “tomorrow”.
As part of the BBC’s extended proposals to the Trust, integration with the industry body DTG (Digital TV Group) was raised as a key way to ensure the Canvas standards would be practical & realistic to adopt from the perspective of non-BBC stakeholders.
The DTG is holding a meeting tomorrow (23 Sep), open to all industry bods, to kick off all things Canvas. Unfortunately at this stage all the available places are filled, but for those interested, below is the agenda for the day care of the DTG:
“The DTG is to hold a meeting to kick-off the profiling and/or development of a common set of standards for hybrid broadcast / IP delivered television in the UK for incorporation into D-Book 7.”
Agenda:
- Introduction and Project Status
- Canvas Proposition, Trade Mark and Relationship with Freeview and Freesat
- Agreed Principles of Engagement with the DTG
- Approach to Standards Adoption and Standardisation
- User Experience
- DTG Project Scope and Structure
- Key Issue Resolution: CA, DRM, EPG
- Test and Conformance
- Project Plan, Key Dependencies and Milestones”
If you’re going along tomorrow, drop us an email (ProjectCanvasUK@gmail.com) during or afterwards to let us know what was covered.
Canvas & related news roundup - 1 Sep
Canvas news:
- Today (Sep 1) sees the close of the BBC Trust’s latest public consultation on Canvas. The next step is for the Trust to publish their provisional conclusions, sometime in the autumn, which will then kick off a final four week consultation period.
- NDS, the middleware provider, has reportedly said it wants Canvas to use its audience measurement system. C21 article here (subscription only I’m afraid, so I’m basing this just on tweets).
- In this Telegraph article CEO of Five, Dawn Airey, uses the example of micropayments as a way to watch episodes before linear transmission.
IPTV & VOD-related news:
The two biggest related news stories this week first:
- Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV (HbbTV) was launched. It’s a consortium made up of European / pan-European companies including Canal+, France Televisions, SES Astra, ANT, and OpenTV. Like Canvas, it is about specifications that bring broadcast and internet content together into devices. Unlike Canvas, it is aiming to be a pan-European effort. Will HbbTV have made a submission to the BBC Trust’s consultation that closed today?
- James Murdoch uses his McTaggart Lecture spot to blast the activities of the BBC. He has called for either a greatly reduced scope (& licence fee) in the activities the organisation provides for free.
- Dawn Airey, in the same Telegraph article, says two VOD-related announcements will be made “imminently”, but has ruled out either to have any Hulu connection. That would leave Arqiva & YouTube as the most likely - but of course, far from the only - candidates. Update: 3 Sep: One of these announcements has now been made: it is a trial with Sony on their internet-connected Bravia TVs. The Guardian article here.
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Summary of new information on Canvas
It’s hard to know whether it was the Friday-lunchtime release, or if there is some sort of Project Canvas fatigue (already!?), but the additional information on Project Canvas released by BBC management has received very little coverage so far.
Here is a summary of what we’ve seen written so far:
- The most comprehensive, no-nonsense summary of points is this post at PaidContentUK. I won’t repeat it all here, but go have a look.
- Broadband TV News in this article covers the the co-operation: how DTG (Digital Tv Group) will work closely with Canvas, as well as open up their membership to ISPs.
- Brand Republic / Media Week focus on the timetable and timings, leading with the feted 2010 launch. Article here.
- The FT’s article from Sat’s print edition has a nice general summary, as well as mentioning the EPG prioritisation issue, and that there will be plenty of commercial opportunities.
And here is the BBC Trust’s statement from Friday, and each section of the additional info (all PDFs): S.1 Venture proposal, S.2 EPG and enabling access for content and service providers , S.3 The agreement of the Canvas specification and industry engagement, S.4 IP distribution and related issues, S.5 ‘Project Canvas’ and fit with wider BBC platform strategy , S.6 Costs.
[Update] There’s also a reaction here from @Nevali. And @BenedictEvans has some thoughts in his tweets.
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