Arqiva, the UK broadcast services business controlled by Australian financial group Macquarie, has completed the purchase of Project Kangaroo this week.
Project Kangaroo is an internet based VoD service which in many ways parallels the broadcasting activities of Arqiva and was put together by the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, who were planning to use it in a similar way to the BBC iPlayer ‘ transmitting catch up TV items direct to PCs in the UK.
Project Kangaroo was blocked by the Competition Commission in the UK, but only because of BBC’s involvement, since the BBC is entirely funded by a government mandated TV license to the tune of around $5
billion each year. As such, it was thought to be unhealthy that it had any element of control over key internet video infrastructure ‘ whereas the right place for this control is within a group which already works for all broadcasters in a similar way ‘ Arqiva.
Arqiva runs broadcast towers and broadcasting services and was created by combining BBC Broadcast, the broadcasting operations of UK cable operator NTL and those of National Grid Wireless. It provides analog and digital TV services transmitting to 22 million homes from a network of 1,154 sites, of which it controls approximately half. It also manages most of analog and DAB digital radio infrastructure in the UK.
Given that it already brings most TV channels to the public across the airwaves, it seems reasonable to trust it with bringing the same channels over the internet, since politically at least, it is virtually the same job. It is likely to play with an even hand, and not give favor only to the original Kangaroo investors.
The assets of Kangaroo were said to cost it just £8 million and the company now says that it is preparing Kangaroo for launch. A new prestigious CEO was also named in Pierre-Jean Sebert, who has proven to be an experienced hand in bringing new service to market within the TV area.
Sebert was UK CEO for Eurosport from 2001 to 2005, having engineered the launch of British Eurosport in 1999. He also launched EurosportNews and has been advising Virgin Media, ONO, UKTV, Rainbow Media, UEFA, and Broadcast Australia in recent TV dealings.
‘I’m very much looking forward to leading the launch of this new platform and to establish it as a prominent proposition in the market,’ said Pierre-Jean Sebert. ‘It’s an important new route for quality long-form content to reach an additional audience, and complements Arqiva’s traditional role in terrestrial broadcasting. We have rapidly established ourselves operationally and have already made significant progress with our consumer proposition, both in terms of user experience and content acquisition. We will share our vision and progress in due time.’
Steve Holebrook, managing director for Terrestrial Broadcast at Arqiva, said: ‘We are delighted to announce Pierre-Jean’s appointment. He brings a wealth of experience across the UK media industry and is ideally placed to lead the new venture. Our focus is now shifting to the business side of the venture and getting ready for the launch of this exciting service.’
Project Kangaroo could also be shifted from the PC to the TV set if another of the BBC’s projects ‘ Project Canvas ‘ comes off, although a head of steam is now building to block the BBC’s involvement with that. If it does get blocked, Aqiva would be in prime position to pick that up as well and run it for the benefit of the same group of partners.
The end game is a set of TV channels which have a VoD element on the web that can be taken over an internet line to a Project Canvas set top which can create an EPG for that and for broadcast content and make it all available to a TV. One very much supports the other. However at this stage the BBC seems set to retain its involvement in Canvas.
The hardware and software technology and related intellectual property of Project Kangaroo will provide the technical basis of the new Arqiva VOD platform which the company says will offer both free to air unpaid TV channels and paid channels.