Once again - where are Blinkx?

This is a leaflet for IPTV World Forum 2009.

An event and a subject, you would have thought, in which Blinkx would have more than a passing interest. And yet - you guessed it! - not a trace of them. Not as sponsors, not as exhibitors, nobody from the company is speaking... Nada. Nothing. Zip. Jackshit. No trace at all.

Not to put too fine a point on it - what the fuck is this company playing at?

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Advertising around online video fails to influence consumers

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From New Media Age, 26th Feb 2009

"This is the best time to make your mark and create momentum"

From USA Today, 17th February

-----------------

In the fledgling online video market, Blinkx is not only building an audience and advertising roster, it is expanding.

The 3-year-old company, which just redesigned its site, added 20 employees last year — to 65. "This is the best time to make your mark and create momentum," says Blinkx CEO Suranga Chandratillake. "We have pressed forward while others have cut back."

-----------------

More empty talk. I don't see any making of marks, and as for momentum - has Chandratillake looked at the share price of his own company lately?

Blinkx's CEO seems to be utterly clueless to the fact that shareholders want ACTION, not TALK. Sadly Chandratillake only seems to be good at one of those things - and it's not the one that counts.

Of course he's welcome to prove me wrong any time he likes...

And that was ten years ago...

Came across this piece during an internet search, from 1999:

"Concern grows over influence of Internet bulletin boards on stock market dealings

It wasn't long ago that if you were a private investor and fancied a gossip about your favourite share, the only avenues available to you might be a chat in your investment club or a discreet word in a City pub.

Now there is a Nineties version of the coffee houses that proved to be the genesis of the London stock exchange in the 17th century.

They are called bulletin boards and these on-line investment discussion groups have both the industry regulators and publicly quoted companies worried."

from The Independent

Now that we're in 2009, when you look at some of the quite blatant ramping that goes on on some bulletin board sites it really isn't surprising that investing in stocks has such a bad name.

For example, earlier today on ADVFN, on one of the Blinkx bulletin board threads, ''montyhedge' (not-so-affectionately known as 'montyplank' to his un-friends) predicted that if things went well for Blinkx it would turn out to be on a PE of 1 and so due some explosive growth.

A quite blatant ramp. Does he seriously expect anyone to believe that Blinkx is going to earn 14p (around the current share price) per share any time soon (which is what it would mean for it to be on a PE of 1)? To suggest so is blatantly delusional - or fraudulent.

Of course the web sites themselves conspire in the ramping. By allowing anonymous posting they invite such fraudulent ramping activity. If they cared about it, and wanted to reduce it, it would be easy enough to achieve - just require that when a user registers to use the site they must supply details for a valid credit card. That would make it child's play to identify, ban (and, if required, prosecute) those who lie and fraudulently deceive investors about the merits of shares. But of course without some users running multiple identities to ramp stocks the site's pages impressions - and therefore advertising revenues - would be decimated... 

Of course investors should always do their own research - but with some companies, particularly small, high-tech start-ups, there isn't always a lot of research to be had.  And in any case it is a simple fact of human nature that people are easily influenced. Politicians have relied on the fact for millenia, as has the media. As so often, with the stock market people should be saved from themselves...  

Once again, no mention of Blinkx

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Hulu. Joost. Why is it that those are the names we keep reading about in relation to online video, and not Blinkx? 

Just what, exactly, does the Blinkx management team think it's playing at? Losing the game, that's what...

22^nd February 2009

 

UK Shareholders' Association,

BM UKSA,

London

WC1N 3XX

 

Dear Sir

I am writing to enquire about the legal position of shareholders regarding statements made by the management of companies in which they hold a stake.

I am a shareholder in Blinkx, the AIM-listed, self-proclaimed “world’s largest and most advanced video search engine”. It floated at 45p nearly two years ago, and despite owning some fantastic technology and making what on the face of it seem some good partnerships, the share price has fallen until it is now bouncing along at about a third of that.

The management would have shareholders believe that this fall in the share price is entirely due to wider market conditions – which are of course, as you don’t need me to tell you, worse than at any time for many decades.

However, I believe this isn’t the whole story. Along with many other shareholders I believe that there are two additional factors which have led to a decline in the Blinkx share price. One is what many perceive as an amateur, bungled, incompetent attempt to take over the American company Miva; and the other has been the public utterances of the Blinkx CEO Suranga Chandratillake.   

More than a year ago now Mr. Chandratillake was at the DLD08 conference when he was asked by Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP, about the Blinkx business model. You can see a video of their exchange here on the Critical Distance weblog:

http://criticaldistance.blogspot.com/2008/01/blinkx-business.html

If you forward the video to about 43 minutes you will be able to see Mr Sorrell’s question, and at about 44m 20s Mr Chandratillake quite clearly says – in public, on the record and on video – that Blinkx is “very close to breakeven”.

In my mind this raises 2 points:

1/ What is the CEO of a publicly-listed company doing releasing what could be construed as price-sensitive information at a conference?

2/ This seems to me to be a clear representation about Blinkx’s future prospects.

In the event we have no evidence that Blinkx is, in fact, at or near break-even – certainly the last interim results we saw last October gave no such indication.

Sadly this was not an isolated incident. As recently as February 4^th of this year  CNET was reporting Mr Chandratillake’s prediction that the company would be profitable next year (http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10157230-93.html).

My point is this: if Blinkx does not achieve profitability next year would shareholders, in your view, have a case against Mr Chandratillake for making false representations about the company? It is clear that he is making statements he intends to be taken seriously – although it is interesting to note that shareholders have no trading update to judge for themselves the company’s progress – and it seems likely that many shareholders will act on his statement and buy shares in the company. Indeed, I added to my holding in Blinkx on the strength of his exchange with Mr Sorrell (and am now showing a 50% paper loss for my troubles), and my own view is that on that occasion Mr Chandratillake negligently (or, on a less generous view, fraudulently) misrepresented Blinkx’s financial prospects.

I would welcome the UK Shareholder Association’s view on this matter.

Yours faithfully,

Gotcha...

Finally managed to track down the video of Martin Sorrell questioning Suranga Chandratillake at DLD08 - it's on

Critical Distance Weblog

Forward the video to about 44m 20s - Chandratillake quite unambiguously says - in public, on the record and on video - that Blinkx is 'very close to breakeven'.

Here we are more than a year later and there has been no official announcement that the company is at breakeven - and certainly there was no indication of that in the last figures we saw back in October.

This, I think, is why the Blinkx share price is on its ass. More than a year ago Chandratillake said that the company was 'very close to breakeven' - and it wasn't (I don't think any reasonable person would say that more than a year was 'very close'). Then we had what looks like - from where I'm standing at least - the completely amateur, bungled, incompetent attempt on Miva. 

And now we have the same Chandratillake running around predicting that Blinkx will be profitable next year.

Is it any wonder that the markets don't appear to believe him and that the share price stays moribund at around a third of the IPO price?

Blinkx should release a full trading update to back-up the prediction of profitability next year - or Chandratillake should shut his mouth and make his actions talk louder than words.

The demand for online video seems insatiable - so why is the Blinkx share price languishing?

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also from New Media Age

Kangaroo to bounce again or not?

No plans to revive Kangaroo, says Microsoft

Platform: Internet | Author: Danielle Long | Source: nma.co.uk | Published: 20.02.09

Microsoft has denied it plans to resurrect Project Kangaroo as part of its MSN video-on-demand plans.

http://www.newmediaage.co.uk/Articles/41599/No+plans+to+revive+Kangaroo,+says+Microsoft.html

MTV brings music video venture to UK

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from New Media Age, 19th Feb 2009

Kangaroo not quite a dead dodo?

Microsoft to fill void left by Project Kangaroo

by Gareth Jones, Revolution UK 20-Feb-09, 10:00

LONDON - Microsoft is in talks with the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 to launch an internet TV service that could see the MSN brand fill the void left by Project Kangaroo , Revolution can reveal.

http://www.brandrepublic.com/Revolution/News/882957/Microsoft-talks-resurrect-Project-Kangaroo/

One small point...

Blinkx originally offered 120c for Miva.

Miva closed today at 11c. 

How astute are the people who offered 120c for something the market now prices at 11c?

Hint: the same people who were happy to sell Blinkx stock at the IPO for 45p, but now refuse to buy any Blinkx stock themselves at c 15p...

Just a reminder of how utterly clueless Blinkx management are...

Remember how the company has (so far) completely failed to officially announce via RNS the movie content recently added to blinkx.com? Well those with even halfway decent memories may remember that they failed to RNS this too, from July of last year:

Utarget.Fox to Take blinkx Worldwide for Advertising Sales

That was massive news and yet they didn't RNS it, they didn't RNS the movie content they just added - in God's name why are they so utterly determined not to announce any good news that might relieve the pain of their (very) long-suffering shareholders? Just how clueless are the people running Blinkx? The stock is manipulated day after day while the company and its Nomads stand idly by and do nothing. The market goes down, the Blinkx share price goes down. The market goes up, the Blinkx share price goes down. It is at a third of its IPO price and shows no signs of moving despite Chandratilake's best efforts to talk up the company (do you get the feeling that after the Miva fiasco nobody believes him? Yeah, me too).

Bring on the takeover. Sack the uselesss incompetents in charge of this company and send Chandratillake back to the tech department where he belongs - because he clearly hasn't got the first idea about news management, managing shareholder expectations or delivering shareholder value...

 

Eric Schmidt in the latest McKinsey Quarterly

"We also try to look for small companies that we can acquire. Because, often, it's small companies that have the great new ideas. They have gotten started with them but can't really complete them."

Hmmm. Think I'll quote that back to him next time I write... 

Ballmer talks...

What the hell is this about?

http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSLG40668520090216

BLINKX GIVES UP BUILDING OWN BRAND

The British video search engine, Blinkx, is to "give up" building its own brand because Yahoo and Google's dominance of video and internet search has proved too hard to crack. The company, founded by Suranga Chandratilake in Cambridge in 2004, had hoped its Blinkx.com website would become the first point of all browsers to find videos online. Chief executive Chandratilake has decided to focus on selling the company's unique search technology instead of building its own site. The technology is already used to power video search on ITV, ask.com, AOL, LookSmart, RealPlayer and MSN UK. Blinkx narrowed its first-half losses to 3.26 million dollars, and is to turn a profit a year ahead of expectations in 2010, according to Chandratilake.

-------

A scare story planted by the shorts/bears?

An accurate report?

Of course we have no idea, because true to form the company has not issued any formal rejection or clarification of the story. Just as with Miva thery seem content to leave doubts about Blinkx hanging in the air, to the detriment of shareholders and investors and yet more damage to Blinkx's management's reputations - not that those reputations can fall much further as far as this shareholder is concerned, being rock-bottom already...

From New Media Age 12 Feb 2009

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Not so much _low_ profile as _no_ profile...

Interesting article that, on the front page of this week's New Media Age (see below). 

Interesting for many reasons, not least because of the total lack of even a single mention of Blinkx.

This is a typical paragraph: 

"But the [Kangaroo] players [ie BBC, Channel 4, ITV] face increased competition in the market from the likes of Five (which has doubled the number of users viewing on Five Demand), Sky's recently launched Sky Player and web TV company Joost, along with potential new arrivals like Apple, Google and News Corp and NBC joint venture Hulu."

This is where Blinkx's determination to keep a low profile - although God alone knows what reason they have for doing so - is damaging the company and shareholder value. Why isn't Blink being mentioned in the same breath as the companies above? Why isn't Blinkx being mentioned at all?

How long, I wonder until there is a full-scale shareholder revolt over the way this company is being (mis)managed?

New Media Age 12 Feb 2009

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New Media Age web site

An interesting exchange...

This is an interesting exchange that occurred this morning on one of the ADVFN Blinkx bulletin board threads between 'pengvin' and 'conk'.

Does rather highlight the delusional nature of many of the Blinkx cheerleaders: here is a company with a share price on its ass, where the (official) news flow has all but dried up, whose CEO seems happy to tell the world about the company's bright future in interview after interview but won't release any hard data to back up his assertions - and yet some shareholders have so drunk the Blinkx Kool Aid that they don't question any of it...

----------------

pengvin - 12 Feb'09 - 11:02 - 1543 of 1545

Here's the annoying thing

If you hold stock here and are frustrated at the sp performance and challenge why it is happening you get f***wits like conk who assume [incorrectly] that you want the sp lower to buy some.

You may want to wipe the delusion away from your eyes otherwise you may be very poor very quickly.

Investment needs an objective view,getting 'loved up' with a stock is spoiling for problems.

conk - 12 Feb'09 - 11:10 - 1544 of 1545

pengvin,, this f***wit as you wish to call me is more than happy with the way things are going with blinkx.and i feel sure you want sp lower than at present but hey who cares.i can wait and will.can you! if not just carry on whinging i am sure you may get a few more to sell up,but not that many..

pengvin - 12 Feb'09 - 11:14 - 1545 of 1545

Exactly what I mean.f***wit of the highest order

People aren't positive about blnx ergo they are derampers.

What an extremely niaive way of looking at things.

Profitable next year? Prove it...

This from a news article on Blinkx.com

"In an interview, blinkx CEO Suranga Chandratillake told Shankland that the company has 65 employees, is hiring and will be profitable next year."

Yeah? Profitable next year? Really? 

If indeed the company is on track for profitability, why not publish a full trading update so that shareholders and investors can judge for themselves? Why do we have to take the word of a man whose company - despite his best efforts to talk it up recently - still languishes at roughly a third of its IPO price? Whose policy on what to RNS and what not to RNS is, as Bill Gates might say, 'random' (no RNS for the movies added to blinkx.com in the past few days, for example)?

If Chandratillake wants to retain any credibility whatsoever, he needs to show us. 'Cause just telling us just isn't working...

Follow-up letter to John McFall MP

9^th February 2009

 

Mr John McFall MP,

House of Commons,

Westminster,

London  SW1A 0AA

 

Dear Mr McFall.

Further to my letter of 13^th January, I am pleased to see that it finally seems as though politicians and regulators are waking up to the danger posed by short-sellers and hedge funds. I welcome the proposed new rules to force disclosure of short positions across the entire UK stockmarket, even as I am disappointed that the FSA has ruled out a complete ban on the practise of short-selling.

In my view there are only two groups of people with a legitimate interest in a company’s share price: those who already own shares in that company and those thinking of buying shares in that company. Why should a third party with no interest in buying shares in a company be allowed to affect that company’s share price by selling what they do not own - and, in the case of naked shorting, have not even borrowed? To listen to hedge fund managers, one would think that they were doing the markets a favour by selling stock short and creating, as they would have it, ‘liquidity’: as if what they were doing was not – as in fact it is – about manipulating the share price of companies and naked greed.

Shorting is speculation, pure and simple: and we all now know where rampant, ill-informed speculation can lead, whether it be shorting shares or trading in exotic financial derivatives. If the world’s financial markets are ever to return to some semblance of sanity and normality, a fundamental re-engineering of processes, practises and risk management will be required. I cannot think of a better place to start than an outright ban on short selling.

I saw a report in The Times on Saturday (http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article5679626.ece) that many fund managers are reacting angrily to the proposed new disclosure rules. The obvious question to ask is: why? If short-selling is perfectly legitimate and above-board – as hedge funds and others claim – why should they or would they worry about being forced to disclose their short positions? If, on the other hand, shorting is – as I and many others maintain – immoral, unethical, highly dangerous and should be illegal, then one could understand that they would have concerns.

If short-sellers are forced to declare their positions across the entire market, only then will the full extent of their manipulation become apparent. That is why so many of them are so worried.

In my view short-selling should be banned, immediately and across the entire market. Power and control should be given back to the pension funds and investment funds who manage the wealth of the many; not given to the few to make obscene profits off the back of those who prudently save. Such a recalibration will be required if we are to avoid the events of the past two years or so ever happening again: why would the Labour Party not do so now, re-establish that it is on the side of the working family against the spivs and the speculators, and avoid a catastrophic wipe-out at the next general election?

Yours sincerely,

 

___________

xxxx xxxxxx   

 

PS. I attach a copy of a cartoon which appeared in Sunday’s Observer magazine. If even the cartoonists have woken up to the utterly ludicrous nonsense of short-selling, why have the politicians yet to act?

One feels that the days of short-selling are numbered...

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From The Observer Magazine, 8th February 2009

If cartoonists of colour supplements are pointing out how absurd short-selling is, you can't help feeling it's only a matter of time until politicians actually do something...

Online video is booming...

"YouTube sets online video record

New figures show that December was a record month for viewing videos online.

Online clips were watched more than four billion times by over 30 million people according to internet monitor comScore..."

BBC Newsbeat, 6th February 2009

Maybe writing letters does work after all...

Moves afoot to force short-sellers of all shares to declare their position.

Independent:  FSA call for extension of short-selling disclosure rules

Guardian: Watchdog to force short-sellers out into the open

The Times: Fund managers react angrily to FSA plan to name all short-sellers

Either my letter to John McFall MP about shorting caught the zeitgeist nicely, or writing letters really does have an effect...

Blinkx are playing a very dangerous game

Interesting update on the News section of the Blinkx web site

SEARCH 32 MILLION HOURS OF VIDEO IN THE BLINKX OF AN EYE

The last paragraph is especially interesting:

"The next steps, after the web, are the living room and the cellphone. Chandratillake said he's in talks with various set-top box manufacturers about getting embedded there. As for an iPhone app, he wouldn't say, but implied that some sort of mobile app is also in the works."

This raises several interesting thoughts:

1/ I love the arrogance of the phrase 'after the web'. To date, we have absolutely no evidence that Blinkx has successfully monetized the web, yet they're already planning the next arena of conquest. Either breathtakingly confident or stunningly arrogant and delusional. How about they show us the money they've made so far before laying out another roadmap?

2/ This is very dangerous: as it is on the official Blinkx web site it could raise legitimate expectations in the minds of shareholder and investors - expectations which could well come back to bite the Blinkx management team in the ass. And will if they fail to deliver it.

3/ It's easy to talk - the real skill lies in delivery. What exactly is Blinkx trying to achive by posting this information? To drop hints about a rosy future and keep dissident shareholders (such as myself - but there are more by the week) onboard? To try and attract a buzz around the company (almost totally absent, at the moment) and try to stimulate the extremely moribund share price? A big 'fuck you' to the company's critics? 

Myself, I'd much rather have a comprehensive trading update and a clear RNS clarifying the Miva situation than more pie-in-the-sky jam tomorrow nonsense about set-top boxes. 

But that would be too easy, wouldn't it? 

Suranga talks the talk, but can he walk the walk?

For a different perspective, I thought I'd quote this post, from 'twiga', on one of the ADVFN Blinkx discussion threads.

"twiga - 7 Feb'09 - 09:28 - 1361 of 1361

...

it is worth noting that suranga does tend to come out with comments that get people excited ,but little happens afterwards ,

eg blinkxtv very slow growth , and only successfully watched in uk or usa .

trans hijacking idea no where to be seen ,,

iblinkx rumours ,,,

miva deal off ,,, then a month later back on ,, and three months later no news .

now we have the talk about set-top boxes being embedded ,,and some mobile phone talk ...

also more talk about buying other companies ..

if all the above were accomplished ,, then suranga will be a star , but he needs to be carefull not to mislead us

action is very important , not just easy talk what youd like to do.

Do it BLINKX !!! show the big boys that you can ."

Exactly my own view. What the hell has happened to Transaction Hijacking (a product that seems tailor-made for today's cost-conscious world)? What the hell is going on with Miva?

It seems as though Chandratillake is announcing a whole raft of new product, ideas and alliances when he still has unfinished business. This only leads to confusion and anger among shareholders and investors: he should focus on one product or deal or service at a time, get it finished, get it out, move on to the next and leave sales, legal, marketing and support to follow behind. Otherwise the company becomes no more than a collection of half-finished or half-baked products and ideas, none of which are generating maximal revenue but all of which suck up time and resources. Eventually such a house of cards collapses (Yoomedia, anyone?).

And of course I would revert to my previous point: if the company was doing as well and growing as fast as Chandratilake claims, why not release a full Trading Update to emphasise the fact? Why do we have to hear about it anecdotally (and unproveably) in newspaper profiles/articles?

Why not show us,rather than just tell us?

Blinkx management will _tell_ us everything, but they don't want to _show_ us anything...

Returning to my theme of a few days ago, it seems clear that the Blinkx management team is determined to get out there and spread the news - which is of course all to the good - but only a rather selective news.

For examples, this piece from the San Francisco Business Times:

"Revenue has been growing rapidly and is expected to reach $12 million to $13 million for this fiscal year, which ends in April, said company founder and CEO Suranga Chandratillake. Revenue was about $6 million the previous year, and $2.5 million the year before that."

Not a word about costs, you'll notice. What did it cost to increase revenue by that amount? We know that Blinkx have been hiring staff (they doubled their sales team last year) and expect to hire more. How much are those staff costing? How close is Blinkx to profitability with that increased revenue? These are the questions shareholders want answered.

Again, in this piece from MediaPost News

"Derived almost entirely by advertising, revenue doubled year-over-year to about $13 million last year, according to Chandratillake"

Once more, good news on the face of it, but not the whole story.

I believe there is now a compelling case for a full trading update from the company stating revenues, costs, progress towards profitability and all other pertinent matters. I believe this is even more important after the Miva fiasco, to restore confidence in the company and its officers moving forwards.

Because from where I'm standing it looks like the company is playing show-and-tell. They'll tell us everything, but they don't want to show us anything... 

More takeovers? He hasn't even managed Miva yet!

More coverage of Blinkx, this time from Media Post News: Blinkx Relaunches Search, Viewing Platform

I like this bit the best:"While larger media companies have ruled out acquisition activity this year, Chandratillake said Blinkx could be tempted by this buyer's market. "We could see some very attractive deals this year, and we're lucky to be sitting on a large cash pile," he said."

This from the man who has severely damaged - if not actually destroyed - his credibility among many shareholders with the botched, totally amateur (or at least that's the way it looks from where I'm standing) non-bid for Miva.  And he seriously thinks that next time he makes an approach for a company they're going to take him seriously?

Are Blinkx getting their PR act together at last?

from the Guardian today

Blinkx adds web TV to video search

Good to see Blinkx getting some coverage at last, what with Chandratillake's appearances on Sky and the BBC's Working Lunch last week.

Now all we need is a resolution to the Miva non-bid and I might be convinced that Blinkx management actually does have some kind of plan after all...

'PROJECT KANGAROO' - FINAL REPORT (Competition Commission)

RNS Number : 7448M 
Competition Commission 
04 February 2009 

News Release 

05/094 February 2009 

'PROJECT KANGAROO' - FINAL REPORT 

The Competition Commission (CC) has decided to block the proposed video on 
demand (VOD) joint venture between the BBC through BBC Worldwide Limited (BBCW), 
ITV plc (ITV) and Channel Four Television Corporation (C4)-UKVOD, also known as 
'Project Kangaroo'. It has concluded that none of the other remedies proposed 
could remove the threat to competition in the VOD market. 
Peter Freeman, CC Chairman and Chairman of the inquiry group, said: 
After detailed and careful consideration, we have decided that this joint 
venture would be too much of a threat to competition in this developing market 
and has to be stopped. 
The case is essentially about the control of UK-originated TV content. VOD is an 
exciting and fast-moving development in TV, which makes programmes previously 
broadcast available to viewers at a time of their choice. The evidence we saw 
showed that UK viewers particularly value programmes produced and originally 
shown in the UK and do not regard other content as a good substitute. 
BBC Worldwide, ITV and Channel 4 together control the vast majority of this 
material, which puts them in a very strong position as wholesalers of TV content 
to restrict competition from other current and future providers of VOD services 
to UK viewers. We thought the joint venture parties would have an interest in 
doing so, in order to make Project Kangaroo a success. 
Without this venture, BBC Worldwide, ITV and Channel 4 would be close 
competitors of each other. We thought that viewers would benefit from better VOD 
services if the parties-possibly in conjunction with other new and/or already 
established providers of VOD-competed with each other. 
We considered very carefully a combination of measures aimed at removing the 
wholesaling activities of the joint venture and safeguarding commercially 
sensitive information, but we were not persuaded that these measures would 
overcome the risk that membership of this joint venture would influence the 
parties' commercial decisions, particularly in relation to the wholesaling of 
VOD content. 
We looked closely at the possible benefits to viewers which this joint venture 
might bring. We found that these and other benefits could come just as well from 
other projects that were less damaging to competition. We expect these 
alternatives to be much more likely to develop in the light of our decision. 
We are aware of the various important proposals coming from Ofcom and the 
Digital Britain project regarding the future of public sector broadcasting and 
the position of the three companies involved in this joint venture. None of the 
proposals is specific or imminent. Our job has been to examine a specific 
proposal for a particular new and developing market. The effects on compe tition 
of other, future proposals for public service broadcasters have yet to be 
examined. 
In its final report, published today at www.competition-commission.org.uk, the 
CC has confirmed its provisional finding that the joint venture is likely to 
result in a substantial lessening of competition (SLC) in the supply of UK TV 
VOD content at the wholesale and retail levels. 
The CC published a notice of possible remedies to address the SLC in December 
2008. These possible remedies included putting in place access remedies to 
control the way that content is offered to other providers and/or making 
material modifications to the terms of the joint venture. Other possible 
measures have since been suggested by various parties, including a proposal by 
the joint venture partners to remove the joint venture's ability to wholesale 
content combined with measures to prevent the exchange of commercially sensitive 
information. 
Notes for editors 
1. The CC is an independent public body which carries out investigations into 
mergers, markets and the regulated industries. 
2. The reference was made by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) on 30 June 2008. The 
CC extended the timetable for the inquiry in August, whilst it awaited important 
information on details of the joint venture, which were still being negotiated 
by the parties. 
3. The Enterprise Act 2002 empowers the OFT to refer to the CC completed or 
pro posed mergers for investigation and report which create or enhance a 25 per 
cent share of supply in the UK (or a substantial part thereof) or where the UK 
turnover associated with the enterprise being acquired is over GBP70 million. 
4. The definition of merger includes a joint venture when two or more enterprises 
cease to be distinct from each other. 
5. Further information on the CC and its procedures, including its policy on the 
provision of information and the disclosure of evidence, can be obtained from 
its website at: www.competition-commission.org.uk. 
6. Enquiries should be directed to Rory Taylor on 020 7271 0242 (email 
rory.taylor@cc.gsi.gov.uk). 

Blinkx creates rich catalog of web video

From The San Francisco Business Times

http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2009/01/12/story14.html

"Revenue has been growing rapidly and is expected to reach $12 million to $13 million for this fiscal year, which ends in April, said company founder and CEO Suranga Chandratillake. Revenue was about $6 million the previous year, and $2.5 million the year before that. The sheer momentum of the online video explosion means the company is likely to keep growing, Chandratillake said. The company now has 60 employees, about 40 of them, including all the technical and research staff, in San Francisco. The company expects to hire 10 to 20 more in the coming year."

Sorry - why do shareholders have to learn these facts from the SF Business Times? Where, exactly, is the official trading update? Are Blinkx touting themselves for sale to the SF/West Coast hi-tech community? 

The company at the heart of a new data revolution

From The Sunday Times Business section, page 7

Kangaroo to launch at last?

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article5627414.ece

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 joint venture 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.