Kangaroo Could Be A Huge Success
Kangaroo – the forthcoming on-demand video service from BBC Worldwide, ITV and Channel 4 – could be a huge success, according to Ray Snoddy, media journalist and one of the panellists at yesterday’s MediaTel Group seminar on the ‘Future of Online’.
“Because of the wonders of the internet it means that the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 will be available to anybody anywhere around the world,” he said. “It could be a huge source of revenue for British broadcasters.”
Fellow panellist Adam Freeman, commercial director at Guardian News and Media, agreed that the platform could be a good source of revenue.
“I think we should applaud Kangaroo, because it’s an acknowledgement that there are three or four ways of making money out of the same content at different stages, whereas originally content was broadcast at a set time, there was an income around it, and then it was gone,” he explained.
“I think maybe the total initial income will fall over time, but the overall gross benefit will absolutely outweigh that, so I think you’ll make more money ultimately.”
From the floor, Errol Baran, head of new media advertising sales at Channel 4, said that the coming together of the major terrestrial broadcasters was a landmark in broadcasting terms, particularly with the amount of content which will be on offer (see Feature: Content-Rich Kangaroo Looks To Dominate VoD Market).
He added that Kangaroo would not be cannibalising TV revenues. “Channel 4 and ITV have a very specific message to the market with regards to TV, and TV maintains the biggest part of our media,” he assured.
“I think that some of the money, at some point will migrate. We have to be in that space to make sure that when the money does migrate – if it does migrate – that we’re picking up any kind of TV budget.”
Meanwhile, talking about IPTV in general, Snoddy was critical of BT’s recent announcement that it now has 150,000 subscribers to its BT Vision service (see BT Vision Hits 150,000 Subscribers).
He said: “Their universe is a 4.3 million BT broadband base, they were marketing to those customers and they only got 150,000. I would be very alarmed indeed if that was my achievement.”
A recent report from Screen Digest said that the BBC’s iPlayer will aid the growth of internet TV, estimating that the BBC’s on-demand video services accounted for 38% of the UK’s free to view web TV services in 2007 (see BBC iPlayer To Aid Web TV Growth).
Over 3.5 million programmes were streamed or downloaded on-demand on the iPlayer in the fortnight following its Christmas day marketing launch (see 3.5 million Programmes Watched On BBC iPlayer At Christmas).
BBC: 020 8743 8000 www.bbc.co.uk Channel 4: 020 7396 4444 www.channel4.com ITV: 020 7843 8000 www.itv.com