The big three combine

December 4th, 2007 Posted in News

The big three of British TV are to combine their services in what John Smith (chief executive of BBC Worldwide) has labelled a “historic partnership”. The idea is to create an exciting online viewing platform dubbed ‘Kangaroo’ containing television shows from Channel 4, ITV and the BBC. Past shows will be contained in an archive feature and current shows will also be available for viewing.

This service will not be courtesy of the license fee payer as funding will be gained through advertising within the site. By sharing the costs of setting up the service, the big three stand to make a great deal from the venture, something RTL (owners of Channel 5) have certainly noticed, having been left out of the potentially lucrative deal. The site will be set up at some time in 2008 as a direct rival to websites such as You Tube and Joost as well as other on demand television services.

Currently the television companies are in talks with the Office of Fair Trading debating competition laws. As the service will be taking on a global market however competition legislation should not apply. This new television service can be seen as an attempt by the old order of broadcasting to strike back at the young internet pretenders, showing that any one company should not have a monopoly over online broadcasting.

With almost 10,000 hours of shows promised on the Kangaroo site, this is the next generation of broadcasting for the British companies. Providing an on demand service has been reached through Channel 4’s OD service and the BBC’s iPlayer this new facility will combine the two with shows from ITV also. Channel 4’s chief executive hailed the move as a way to provide viewers with “ultimate control over what they watch and when they watch it”. But with on demand services already being offered by Sky, BT Vision and Tiscali the new service will have to be truly dynamic to find itself as a leader in an already competitive market.