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Project Kangaroo tech finally has buyer, new VOD service set to launch
23 Jul 2009 | 16.18 Europe/London
It was back in February that the competition authorities delivered their knock-out blow to Project Kangaroo, the joint video-on-demand (VOD) service bankrolled by the UK's terrestrial TV stations. Now, after months of the technology behind it being in the shop window, it finally has a buyer - and it's British: Arqiva.
Project Kangaroo: a joint initiative between the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, famously doomed to failure. The Competition Commission said that - because the three companies already controlled so many of the programmes made and broadcast in the UK - their cooperation on Kangaroo could give them too much power in the fledgling VOD marketplace. But even for them failure didn't come cheap: BBC Worldwide admitted last week it spent £9.1 million on the venture and, with ITV putting its own costs in the region of £12 million, the total development bill is thought to be over £30 million. Though it's not known exactly how much the Kangaroo assets are being sold on for, it's expected to be a fraction of this amount.
Arqiva now plans to launch its own video-on-demand service, hoping it can work with broadcasters and other content providers to bring their productions to consumers online; it says it's interested in "both free-to-air and pay content propositions." French-owned telecoms and media company Orange had previously been sniffing around Kangaroo's technology as it sought to develop new online TV projects in its native country. But since it already had over two million IPTV customers, it may have not stood to gain much from buying up the Project's assets; Arqiva acquiring them does seem to make a lot more sense. "We believe that online video-on-demand is an exciting and complementary development, and a natural extension to our traditional broadcast business," says Steve Holebrook, one of its managing directors.
Arqiva is often referred to by the press as something like a "broadcast transmission" entity - which doesn't really tell you much about what it is. While its name may not have the same sort of a household recognition as Orange it's certainly no media minnow. As well as controlling over a thousand TV and radio masts across the country, it owns two of the six Freeview television multiplexes and recently became the sole owner of the national commercial digital radio multiplex. And it has business interests in mobile communications and wireless broadband.
The Winchester-based firm says it expects to complete its acquisition of the "hardware and software technology" in the next few weeks, as well as the "related intellectual property" - though it's not expected that the new VOD service will bear Kangaroo branding. "The platform will aim to host top-end quality content from leading broadcasters and independent content providers to provide a broad range of user experiences to its audiences," an Arqiva spokesperson said. As to what it can actually achieve, we'll have to wait longer than a few weeks for that.
Further details at [The Guardian] and [paidContent]
Project Kangaroo: a joint initiative between the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, famously doomed to failure. The Competition Commission said that - because the three companies already controlled so many of the programmes made and broadcast in the UK - their cooperation on Kangaroo could give them too much power in the fledgling VOD marketplace. But even for them failure didn't come cheap: BBC Worldwide admitted last week it spent £9.1 million on the venture and, with ITV putting its own costs in the region of £12 million, the total development bill is thought to be over £30 million. Though it's not known exactly how much the Kangaroo assets are being sold on for, it's expected to be a fraction of this amount.
Arqiva now plans to launch its own video-on-demand service, hoping it can work with broadcasters and other content providers to bring their productions to consumers online; it says it's interested in "both free-to-air and pay content propositions." French-owned telecoms and media company Orange had previously been sniffing around Kangaroo's technology as it sought to develop new online TV projects in its native country. But since it already had over two million IPTV customers, it may have not stood to gain much from buying up the Project's assets; Arqiva acquiring them does seem to make a lot more sense. "We believe that online video-on-demand is an exciting and complementary development, and a natural extension to our traditional broadcast business," says Steve Holebrook, one of its managing directors.
Arqiva is often referred to by the press as something like a "broadcast transmission" entity - which doesn't really tell you much about what it is. While its name may not have the same sort of a household recognition as Orange it's certainly no media minnow. As well as controlling over a thousand TV and radio masts across the country, it owns two of the six Freeview television multiplexes and recently became the sole owner of the national commercial digital radio multiplex. And it has business interests in mobile communications and wireless broadband.
The Winchester-based firm says it expects to complete its acquisition of the "hardware and software technology" in the next few weeks, as well as the "related intellectual property" - though it's not expected that the new VOD service will bear Kangaroo branding. "The platform will aim to host top-end quality content from leading broadcasters and independent content providers to provide a broad range of user experiences to its audiences," an Arqiva spokesperson said. As to what it can actually achieve, we'll have to wait longer than a few weeks for that.
Further details at [The Guardian] and [paidContent]