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BBC places Trust in Project Canvas - for now
22 Dec 2009 | 21.36 Europe/London
The BBC's governing body has finally given a provisional green light to Project Canvas, the IPTV venture the Beeb'ss been working on alongside ITV, BT and Five - within days of TalkTalk and Channel 4 climbing aboard. The BBC Trust says the likely value of such a service to the public outweighs the potential negative impact it could have on the UK's embryonic VOD market.
Given the names involved, Project Canvas is the most high profile attempt yet at putting together an Internet Protocol Television service in the UK. With all the country's terrestrial TV companies now partnering our biggest two ISPs - TalkTalk and BT Retail are on their way to having ten million customers between them (BT has at least five million itself already) - hopes are high that the Project's launch could kick-start a British Video-On-Demand (VOD) revolution. Not only that, the stakes are high too: in a recession that's both flattened advertising revenues and made the BBC self-conscious about throwing money around, Canvas will now require an estimated £115.6 million in the four years after it's launched alone.
The go-ahead the BBC Trust has given to Project Canvas is a conditional one - and subject to a second consultation period; its aim is not only to "lessen negative market impact" but also make sure that the component parts it believes are the most valuable to members of the public are retained. Two major rules that the Trust has laid down are that Canvas must remain free-to-air, and that the cost incurred to the Beeb isn't more than twenty per cent over budget in any one year (otherwise the BBC has to beg for more cash from the Trust). Other conditions are:-
One content provider that is almost asking to be discriminated against is Sky, which is the most vocal critic of the BBC's involvement with Canvas - and has, in any case, indicated it doesn't want to join in its IPTV fun. The Murdoch-owned firm argues that, whatever the Trust says about the value of the IPTV venture to the public, the Project goes beyond the Corporation's public service remit. "The key concern with Canvas is the leading role that the BBC wants to take in the project," Sky's Director of Corporate Affairs Graham McWilliam says. "This is nothing short of BBC mission creep."
Diane Coyle, Chair of the Trust's Strategic Approvals Committee, disagrees with the British broadcasting bastion of the Murdoch empire. "One of the BBC's aims is to bring the benefits of emerging communications technologies to the public," she says. "After careful consideration, the Trust has provisionally concluded that Canvas is likely to benefit licence fee payers. We believe Canvas could be an important part of the way in which the BBC delivers its services in the future."
According to the BBC Trust, there have been more than eight hundred written consultation responses from individuals and "industry stakeholders" (the latter, of course, including the disgruntled Sky). It also separately approached another sixty industry stakeholders and "considered a range of other research." But that doesn't mean it's reached a final decision: the second consultation will now be open up until February 2nd next year, with judgement day vaguely scheduled for sometime in "Spring 2010."
"Our conditions are designed to help secure the public value we identified and to help minimise, where possible, any potential harmful effects on the market," Ms. Coyle continues. "We will now be consulting industry and the public on our provisional conclusions. The last stage of the process will be to consider the responses to that consultation before reaching our final decision."
Another condition, situated discretely from the rest, is that "BBC involvement in Canvas must be kept operationally separate from its involvement in Freesat and Freeview" - and this hints at one BBC tendency that may not be in the public interest. While Coyle may talk about the BBC bringing "emerging communications technologies to the public," the range of BBC-backed technologies available to the consumer is starting to become bewildering to the average punter. What are licence payers are being forced to give up the standardised world of analogue TV in exchange for? Today on one high street I heard a guy saying he bought a TV last year and it's already on the verge of being "obsolete." Didn't we keep analogue televisions for a lot longer?
Given that it was the Competition Commission that saw off Project Kangaroo - an earlier attempt at a VOD service with BBC involvement - it's by no means certain that Project Canvas will actually reach the market, whatever the BBC Trust finally decides. Clearly, the conditions that require the platform to be as open as possible to other content providers and Internet service providers have been included to try and persuade the regulators that Canvas won't, like it's predecessor was seen to, represent a "substantial lessening of competition." That still may not be enough to make sure that Canvas doesn't go the way of the Kangaroo.
Given the names involved, Project Canvas is the most high profile attempt yet at putting together an Internet Protocol Television service in the UK. With all the country's terrestrial TV companies now partnering our biggest two ISPs - TalkTalk and BT Retail are on their way to having ten million customers between them (BT has at least five million itself already) - hopes are high that the Project's launch could kick-start a British Video-On-Demand (VOD) revolution. Not only that, the stakes are high too: in a recession that's both flattened advertising revenues and made the BBC self-conscious about throwing money around, Canvas will now require an estimated £115.6 million in the four years after it's launched alone.
A conditional surrender
The go-ahead the BBC Trust has given to Project Canvas is a conditional one - and subject to a second consultation period; its aim is not only to "lessen negative market impact" but also make sure that the component parts it believes are the most valuable to members of the public are retained. Two major rules that the Trust has laid down are that Canvas must remain free-to-air, and that the cost incurred to the Beeb isn't more than twenty per cent over budget in any one year (otherwise the BBC has to beg for more cash from the Trust). Other conditions are:-
- Engagement must be adequately sought within the industry, meaning amongst other things that the technical specifications Canvas adopts must be published "well in advance of launch" in order to make sure all manufacturers have enough time to adapt as they wish
- Any loans offered up to partners in the Canvas venture must be available on the same terms to other partners involved
- Quality standards for ISPs must be set on a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory basis
- Other content providers must also have access to the platform on a fair basis, with non-discriminatory terms.
One content provider that is almost asking to be discriminated against is Sky, which is the most vocal critic of the BBC's involvement with Canvas - and has, in any case, indicated it doesn't want to join in its IPTV fun. The Murdoch-owned firm argues that, whatever the Trust says about the value of the IPTV venture to the public, the Project goes beyond the Corporation's public service remit. "The key concern with Canvas is the leading role that the BBC wants to take in the project," Sky's Director of Corporate Affairs Graham McWilliam says. "This is nothing short of BBC mission creep."
Diane Coyle, Chair of the Trust's Strategic Approvals Committee, disagrees with the British broadcasting bastion of the Murdoch empire. "One of the BBC's aims is to bring the benefits of emerging communications technologies to the public," she says. "After careful consideration, the Trust has provisionally concluded that Canvas is likely to benefit licence fee payers. We believe Canvas could be an important part of the way in which the BBC delivers its services in the future."
Canvassing opinion
According to the BBC Trust, there have been more than eight hundred written consultation responses from individuals and "industry stakeholders" (the latter, of course, including the disgruntled Sky). It also separately approached another sixty industry stakeholders and "considered a range of other research." But that doesn't mean it's reached a final decision: the second consultation will now be open up until February 2nd next year, with judgement day vaguely scheduled for sometime in "Spring 2010."
"Our conditions are designed to help secure the public value we identified and to help minimise, where possible, any potential harmful effects on the market," Ms. Coyle continues. "We will now be consulting industry and the public on our provisional conclusions. The last stage of the process will be to consider the responses to that consultation before reaching our final decision."
Another condition, situated discretely from the rest, is that "BBC involvement in Canvas must be kept operationally separate from its involvement in Freesat and Freeview" - and this hints at one BBC tendency that may not be in the public interest. While Coyle may talk about the BBC bringing "emerging communications technologies to the public," the range of BBC-backed technologies available to the consumer is starting to become bewildering to the average punter. What are licence payers are being forced to give up the standardised world of analogue TV in exchange for? Today on one high street I heard a guy saying he bought a TV last year and it's already on the verge of being "obsolete." Didn't we keep analogue televisions for a lot longer?
Given that it was the Competition Commission that saw off Project Kangaroo - an earlier attempt at a VOD service with BBC involvement - it's by no means certain that Project Canvas will actually reach the market, whatever the BBC Trust finally decides. Clearly, the conditions that require the platform to be as open as possible to other content providers and Internet service providers have been included to try and persuade the regulators that Canvas won't, like it's predecessor was seen to, represent a "substantial lessening of competition." That still may not be enough to make sure that Canvas doesn't go the way of the Kangaroo.