The BBC Trust has given a conditional green light to the IPTV venture.

Project Canvas can now boast of two major new partners.  Broadcaster, Channel 4 and ISP, TalkTalk have joined the project which is aimed at creating a television platform which combines Freeview (and possibly pay per view) broadcasting with internet video content.
Channel 4 and TalkTalk join the BBC, ITV, Five and BT meaning that all public [...]

American video-on-demand service Hulu, hotly tipped to be coming to the UK to partner with ITV, is the latest media outlet to announce it’s considering charging for content. As the amount of money we’re paying for our bandwidth continues to fall, could the cost of what we actually do with our broadband connections be set to rise?

The BBC Trust today turned down plans for the BBC to share the iPlayer among a ‘Federation’ of public service broadcasters – namely, ITV, Channel 4 and Five.
In what must have seemed a little too much like a return to the days of Kangaroo the BBC had suggested that iPlayer could be shared among the [...]

Getting a deal to put Sky Player on its IP Vision’s Fetch TV set top box is a coup which its Business and Marketing Director, Peter Cox, believes will show it is doing what Canvas is talking about, only right here and now. In essence, he jokes, it is like having a canvas, only theirs [...]

Ofcom’s just announced its proposals for regulating the UK’s infamously “nascent” video-on-demand marketplace. In line with revisions to European law, content could be regulated as soon as December this year.

According to the BBC’s IPTV Programme Director, Project Canvas could have an innovative way of storing content locally in order to reduce the bandwidth demands of the service. Not only that, Richard Halton says there’s a “real opportunity” that the much-hyped Project Canvas will reach the market next year. Meanwhile, there’s news on Hulu and Arqiva’s own video-on-demand (VOD) plans.

Video-on-demand service BlinkBox is the latest to sign a deal to host BBC content, following hot on the heals of MSN Video. But whereas the Microsoft offering is all about streaming, the UK-based firm appears to have a very different distribution model up its sleeve as the competition in the British VOD heats up.

Microsoft has admitted it’s going to be playing catch-up in the British video-on-demand (VOD) marketplace. The Redmond corporation has announced its new service will feature content originally broadcast on BBC and ITV – just as Channel Five made it’s own announcement that it’s becoming the first new partner of Project Canvas, the upcoming IPTV system being developed by the very same terrestrial channels.

It was back in February that the competition authorities delivered their knock-out blow to Project Kangeroo, 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.

YouTube is having to take down thousands of sexually explicit videos after it was targeted by pranksters on what’s being dubbed “Porn Day.” While most of the clips have already been deleted, others could be up for days.

Project Canvas – the on-demand broadband TV collaboration between the BBC, BT and ITV – could run into exactly the same problems that saw Project Kangaroo mothballed, according to the UK’s communications regulator. In a letter to the BBC Trust, Ofcom have warned the project could be subject to an Office of Fair Trading (OFT) [...]

ITV’s Chief Executive Michael Grade’s warning that the British regulatory system could give American rivals an unfair advantage may be starting to be realised as both Hulu and TV.com admit to holding talks with UK broadcasters and content owners to launch their services here.
With the scrapping of Kangaroo, through which the BBC, Channel 4 and [...]

Project Kangaroo, the failed broadband TV venture between the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, could be bouncing back, with Orange a potential buyer for the technology behind it. The mobile phone provider is thought to be one of two firms – the other a tech company – in the running to buy Kangaroo’s assets.

Orange, [...]

The BBC and Sky are, perhaps unsurprisingly, at loggerheads as to how central the BBC should be in delivering the government’s vision for Digital Britain.
Last week Sky asserted the government should reconsider its call, through the interim Digital Britain report, for the BBC to play a role in marketing broadband Britain and helping to set [...]

Broadband providers and entertainment companies are queuing up to criticise BBC Worldwide, ITV and C4 coming together to form a proposed joint online catch-up service, Kangaroo.
The potential service has been referred to the Competition Commission following concerns it may prove anti-competitive. The government decision has meant those opposed to the one-stop shop approach have been [...]

The elegantly named Department for Business Enterprise & Regulatory Reform is consulting on how best to address illicit P2P file-sharing via a 3-month online consultation.
We recently covered the Memorandum of Understanding between six large ISPs, BERR and the BPI however this consultation looks beyond that to questions like “what about the other ISPs” and “what [...]

Kangaroo, the television catch-up and video on demand service being jointly developed by the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 has been referred to the Competition Commission by the Office of Fair Trading.
The Competition Commission (CC) now has a 24 week period to look in to the online television service which will now not debut this [...]

YouTube is synonymous with amateur shaky footage of high school pranks and skateboarding dogs but that might be about to change, at least partially; and that could cause a headache for ISPs.
The famous video site has recently given its content partners, the companies which launch a channel on YouTube, the green light to exceed its [...]