We were gutted when the Competition Commission told Project Kangaroo to hop it earlier this year. The joint web-TV venture promised all the power of BBC iPlayer, but with multi-channel content. But a new online TV service is to rise out of Project Kangaroo’s ashes: the platform has just been sold, with the eager bidder promising a video-on-demand service this year. Watch out Hulu!
BBC Worldwide, ITV and Channel 4, Project Kangaroo’s backers, have confirmed that the platform has been sold, to broadcast technology company Arqiva, and it has big plans for it. “Arqiva plans to use the Project Kangaroo platform assets to launch a new video-on-demand service to UK consumers in the coming months,” it said.
Arqiva aims to use the Project Kangaroo groundwork to launch its own service, with “top-end quality content from leading broadcasters and independent content”. That’s not so different from what major US player Hulu has planned for the UK, and within the same time frame too.
Of course, what that content will be is still up in the air, but at least the platform should be solid: BBC Worldwide alone ploughed £9.1m in to Project Kangaroo. For that money, we’re hoping for a serious BBC iPlayer rival.
Out TBC | £TBC | Arqiva (Via The Register)
they better hand it to us Australians with a name like that!
[...] is the multi-channel online TV catch-up service that was once Project Kangaroo – a collaboration between Channel 4, ITV and the BBC that was blocked by the Competition [...]