Competition Commission blocks Project Kangaroo
The Competition Commission (CC) has blocked the launch of the proposed video on demand (VOD) venture between the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 with the working name of Project Kangaroo.
The reasoning behind the decision was quite simple, as explained (pdf) by Peter Freeman, CC Chairman and Chairman of the inquiry group:
Without this venture, BBC Worldwide, ITV and Channel 4 would be close competitors of each other. We thought that viewers would benefit from better VOD services if the parties—possibly in conjunction with other new and/or already established providers of VOD—competed with each other.
While many commentators had expected the CC to raise concerns about Project Kangaroo, most thought that the broadcasters would find compromises in order to overcome them.
Project Kangaroo was first announced in November 2007. The idea was to complement existing free online catch-up services (BBC iPlayer, ITV Catch Up and 4oD) with a single portal that would carry advertising around free programming and sell shows from the archives.
The BBC press release said that Project Kangaroo would be:
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A single destination for over 10,000 hours of quality entertainment content
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An historic joint venture between three of the UK's largest broadcasters
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The first time that viewers will have access to a large range of catch-up and archive programming
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A major competitor in UK on-demand content market.
In The Guardian, Emily Bell criticised the CC decision and predicted that an overseas media company would now step in.
What is likely to happen next is that one of these "nascent services" such as Hulu, the US-owned distribution network for high value video content, will become the platform of choice for UK broadcasters. If this happens advertising pounds will be returned, a la Google, to an organisation which has US shareholders and no interest in reinvesting in UK programmes.
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