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£100m Canvas to cost BBC £16m or £24m
04 Nov 2009 | 12.39 Europe/London
The BBC has released figures detailing the anticipated cost of developing Canvas, an open platform standard for combining IPTV and Freeview it hopes to roll out commercially towards the end of next year.
The corporation estimates that the total cost of development up to launch, and for its first four years, will be just under £100m (£98.6m). If the BBC has four partners, the project cost over the same period is expected to be £24m but if the corporation is joined by six partners (which it claims is more likely than 4) the required investment will be £16m.
Crucially for those who have attacked the BBC for putting licence fee payers’ money in to the new platform – namely Sky – the BBC Executive has revealed it has spent just over £700,000 so far on developing Canvas as part of its 'Connected TV' project.
The BBC Trust is now asking for any new submissions to its review of Canvas until November 18th.
Open to all
The Canvas project is following on from the doomed Kanagroo internet television project which sought to combine BBC and commercial broadcasters’ content on one online service. At the time it was deemed to be anti-competitive and so the latest submission from the BBC Executive to the BBC Trust has been at pains to point out that public service broadcasters (PSBs) would not be given preferential treatment within the Canvas team, as had been previously suspected.
Instead, Caroline Thomson, COO at the BBC, pointed out that there would no longer be a difference between broadcasters and ISPs when it came to giving out shares in Canvas and there would no longer be a majority stake in the platform reserved for public service broadcasters. The letter talked of removing 'barriers' to entry to underline that the platform is available for all to join.
So far the project is supported by the BBC, ITV, Five and BT.
The corporation estimates that the total cost of development up to launch, and for its first four years, will be just under £100m (£98.6m). If the BBC has four partners, the project cost over the same period is expected to be £24m but if the corporation is joined by six partners (which it claims is more likely than 4) the required investment will be £16m.
Crucially for those who have attacked the BBC for putting licence fee payers’ money in to the new platform – namely Sky – the BBC Executive has revealed it has spent just over £700,000 so far on developing Canvas as part of its 'Connected TV' project.
The BBC Trust is now asking for any new submissions to its review of Canvas until November 18th.
Open to all
The Canvas project is following on from the doomed Kanagroo internet television project which sought to combine BBC and commercial broadcasters’ content on one online service. At the time it was deemed to be anti-competitive and so the latest submission from the BBC Executive to the BBC Trust has been at pains to point out that public service broadcasters (PSBs) would not be given preferential treatment within the Canvas team, as had been previously suspected.
Instead, Caroline Thomson, COO at the BBC, pointed out that there would no longer be a difference between broadcasters and ISPs when it came to giving out shares in Canvas and there would no longer be a majority stake in the platform reserved for public service broadcasters. The letter talked of removing 'barriers' to entry to underline that the platform is available for all to join.
So far the project is supported by the BBC, ITV, Five and BT.