The Inside Line: Project Kangaroo’s competition issues
This week’s edition of “The Inside Line” focuses on the Competition Commission’s provisional report into BBC Worldwide, ITV and Channel 4’s joint online VoD venture, Project Kangaroo. Each week we will take a key media topic and ask the industry for their opinion.
This week’s question:
Andy Smith – Head of TV, Billetts
“Video-on-demand is a relatively small but hugely exciting innovation in media that presents new opportunities for advertisers. They are starting to experiment with it as consumers are increasingly doing the same.
Billetts believe that video-on-demand is hugely important long-term to advertisers to communicate their brand messages to consumers and as such are keen to see a healthy and continually innovative market for it.
Innovation is often born from competition so I believe the Competition Commission is right to be cautious as Kangaroo enters unchartered waters. Making something work better for the consumer often means it’ll work better for the advertiser. It’s a balancing act though as broadcasters need to make it pay to ensure both the future of VOD and of the wider commercial TV market.”
Gemma Russell – Account Manager, Mediaedge:CIA
“Project Kangaroo is a necessity in the UK VOD market which, although is growing rapidly, is still very much in its infancy.
The main impetus of the joint venture should solely be to encourage new and existing consumers to use the service by offering them a plethora of catch-up and archive content.
By letting Britain’s three biggest terrestrial broadcasters run this service without restriction, there is a chance that other VOD services could be lost in this emerging medium which is neither beneficial to consumers or advertisers.”
Alki David – Founder of online portal FilmOn.com
“If Project Kangaroo is going to be an exclusive club, though it has partly been created with public money, then it is clearly wrong and probably illegal.
It is clearly not in the public interest for content created for the people to be closed off in only one location and it would be destroying the essence of the internet, which is an open forum for content creation and thought.
But the broader issue is that ITV, BBC and Channel 4’s online offerings are increasingly irrelevant in the face of superior 21st century content creation and technologies.”
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