From The Sunday TimesFebruary 1, 2009
Kangaroo hops to launch
James Ashton
An internet television service designed to rival YouTube is finally expected to get off the ground this week by getting the green light from the Competition Commission.
Kangaroo, a jointventure
between the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, was thrown into doubt in December when the commission raised doubts over a “substantial lessening of competition” in the fast-growing video-on-demand market.
Designed to be a single portal for viewers to catch up on recently broadcast television shows as well as an archive of older programmes, shareholders have reached an agreement to supply rival websites on the same terms.
As a result, Kangaroo, to be funded by advertising, may be ready for launch in late spring. It aims to show more than 10,000 hours of programming, including BBC shows that are more than seven days old.
Before that, they appear on iPlayer, the free service which notched up 41m programme requests in December and 271m during the whole of 2008.
iPlayer has proved so popular that by some estimates it accounts for 5% of UK internet traffic. This led the Digital Britain report last week to suggest the BBC might have to contribute to broadband-delivery costs.
Concerns over Kangaroo had been raised by Virgin Media, independent television producers and BSkyB, the satellite broadcaster 39.1% owned by News Corporation, parent of The Sunday Times.
Kangaroo, a joint
Designed to be a single portal for viewers to catch up on recently broadcast television shows as well as an archive of older programmes, shareholders have reached an agreement to supply rival websites on the same terms.
As a result, Kangaroo, to be funded by advertising, may be ready for launch in late spring. It aims to show more than 10,000 hours of programming, including BBC shows that are more than seven days old.
Before that, they appear on iPlayer, the free service which notched up 41m programme requests in December and 271m during the whole of 2008.
iPlayer has proved so popular that by some estimates it accounts for 5% of UK internet traffic. This led the Digital Britain report last week to suggest the BBC might have to contribute to broadband-delivery costs.
Concerns over Kangaroo had been raised by Virgin Media, independent television producers and BSkyB, the satellite broadcaster 39.1% owned by News Corporation, parent of The Sunday Times.
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