The future for free broadcast TV such as the UK’s Freesat and Freeview is limited, according to the BBC’s director of new media and technology Erik Huggers. ‘If you look at free-to-air platforms there is not a clear future for them,’ Huggers said, even after they start offering HD programs.
Only IPTV and Project Canvas can give consumers the shows and services they will want, he said, and keep up with the innovations that pay-TV services are developing. He said the pace of innovation in pay TV ‘is much faster’ than free broadcasts and satcasts. ‘We think it’s important for subscribers to have an option that is subscription free and has the same sort of features and functionality as pay-TV’, he said.
The BBC, ITV and BT are working to develop a free-to-all open source technology for Project Canvas that would offer an on-demand television service over fixed and mobile broadband to TV sets, computers and other digital media devices.
Project Canvas has yet to gain approval from Ofcom, the UK telecoms regulator. Meanwhile, the US’ Hulu.com, a potential competitor to Project Canvas, will reportedly launch its free over-the-Net video service in the UK in September. Hulu.com is asking the BBC and other UK content owners to offer their content from Hulu.com’s Web site.
There may be hope for Project Canvas if and when the Conservatives take control of Parliament from the Labor party. Conservative leader David Cameron has said that under his party the role of Ofcom and similar government agencies will be considerably reduced. He said slimming down Ofcom and making it more accountable would save money.
Perhaps inadvertently addressing the roadblock that Ofcom has erected for Project Canvas, Cameron said, ‘Give Ofcom, or give a new body, the technical function of handing out the licenses and regulating lightly the content that is on the screens. But it shouldn’t be making policy, it shouldn’t have its own communications department.’ He said the head of Ofcom is paid almost half a million pounds, about three quarters of a million dollars, per year.