The seven shareholders in YouView have renewed their terms of contract to continue to invest in the platform for another five years.
The new agreement retains BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, BT, TalkTalk and Arqiva as equal shareholders committed to promoting the future of connected free-to-air TV and enabling an upgrade path to pay services.
However, according to a report in the Guardian, five of the shareholders are each to reduce their financial contributions to YouView – which is estimated to have cost over £100 million to develop and launch in 2012 – by 85% from an average of £5 million a year to £750,000.
If reports are correct, this means that the remaining shareholders and main beneficiaries, BT and TalkTalk, will be left to fund further development of the platform.
YouView was originally expected to be used as the future for public service broadcasting, however the BBC, Channel 4 and ITV announced earlier this year that they would be teaming together to establish a new service after an apparent “hijacking” of YouView by pay-TV partners BT and Talk Talk – indicating a recommittal to Freeview.
Commenting on the contract renewal, Richard Halton, chief executive of YouView, said: “We are delighted that all seven shareholders have committed to the future of YouView with a five-year term.
“The next phase for YouView involves ambitious developments across a range of devices and we’re looking forward to achieving our long term target of 10 million connected UK homes.”
Since its launch, YouView has passed the one million UK subscriber mark and records approximately three million video on demand plays each week.
