The fate of Project Canvas

Our columnist Raymond Snoddy discusses the pitfalls Project Canvas must traverse before hitting the UK market.

Sometimes we barely have time to get familiar with the latest silly names in broadcasting before they have crashed in flames or been deliberately shot down by regulators.

Kangaroo was called Kangaroo for no particular reason. It wasn’t even the project’s real name, which was never officially announced, before the coming together of the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 to jointly market their library programmes online was judged a threat to future competition and innovation.

So no more Kangaroo, although there can be Hulu in the UK market, or indeed almost anything that Google, Yahoo or Microsoft decide to produce.

Next up Project Canvas, an even more bland name chosen perhaps to try to ensure that the competition authorities will find it unthreatening. Project Canvas as in Blank Canvas.

Actually, it’s not the same at all as Kangaroo and has much more modest designs merely to take the remarkable success of the iPlayer concept, which has provided millions with TV catch-up facilities on computers, and take the service seamlessly to the television set.

You would think those suggesting such an idea would get, if not actual medals, at least active encouragement.

All the evidence so far suggests that the vast bulk of IPTV pulled up on computer screens is in fact accounted for by the output of the UK’s main public service broadcasters and consists of shows that viewers have missed first time around or failed to record. So much more convenient if they can be viewed on TV screens.

Of course the world of IPTV will obviously be very different, if not in five years time, then certainly in 10. It would be a terrible thing if innovation were stifled and the emergence of new players blocked.

Indeed they are already starting to emerge. Last month IP Vision launched its Fetch TV service and in the US Zillion TV is already in beta trials with its plans to bring any video on the internet straight to the television screen.

Clearly the next stage in the history of television will involve some sort of cost effective consumer device – the technology has been in existence for several years – to enable viewers armed with remote controllers to pull up onto the screen, in a neutral way, their own choice of video whether it comes from the broadcast schedules or the internet.

Project Canvas, which is supported and controlled by the BBC, BT, ITV and Five, could be seen as a public good, an internet version of Freeview which has been such a success in increasing choice for viewers who have no desire or ability to take out large monthly subscriptions.

Instead there is a danger, despite the obvious differences, to treat Canvas as a Mark 2, back door version, of Kangaroo.

The fate of Project Canvas is still with the BBC Trust although BBC executives hope to be able to launch a service before the end of next year.

An intelligent guess would be that the Trust will give the go-ahead in the autumn with suitable caveats and conditions. Alas, that is unlikely to be the end of the matter. Communications regulator Ofcom has already managed to get its oar into the proceedings and the involvement of the Office of Fair Trading, the Competition Commission and the Government cannot be ruled out.

At the very least we could be looking at additional expense, bureaucracy and delay – if not worse.

It would be a terrible shame if, once again, to protect future mindblowing innovation – which actually doesn’t often need such protection if the idea is good enough – useful, intermediate initiatives which could be up and running in 18 months are blocked.

Ofcom has insisted that the system should be open to other users and that is absolutely fair.

Enders Analysis has also pointed to the problems inherent in allowing the founding PSBs to have a built in majority, and in effect, editorial control over the future direction of the venture.

These flaws, the Enders analysts believe, can be addressed with a little bit of flexibility on all sides.

But then we run smack into the great innovation conundrum.

Taking care of ownership structure and editorial control still leaves, Enders believes, “a large grey area with respect to the possible stifling of innovation. This is where we expect Project Canvas will encounter the strongest headwinds of complaints and the outlook is uncertain”.

Uncertain indeed. And increasingly it looks uncertain in the UK whether established players can combine in any way to make the difficult transition from the present world to that which is clearly on the horizon.

We seem to have entered a Health & Safety form of regulation where the evidence is not about harm actually being caused but about being able to prove the negative – that no actual harm might be caused to competition some time in the future.

I look forward to being able to use my Canvas box in time for the Christmas after next but I definitely won’t hold my breath.

Do you agree with Raymond? Send us your opinion – news@mediatel.co.uk