Project Canvas - to be examined by the OFT

OFT to examine Project Canvas

Critics of VoD joint venture involving the BBC, BT, TalkTalk and ITV will be able to submit concerns to competition authorities

The Office of Fair Trading is to examine Project Canvas, the video-on-demand service backed by the BBC and others, giving critics including BSkyB and Virgin Media a chance to submit their concerns to competition authorities for the first time.

Project Canvas, the joint venture to bring VoD content to digital viewers with Freeview and Freesat that has backers including the BBC, BT, TalkTalk and ITV, has been heavily scrutinised by the BBC Trust but has not been the subject of examination by a wider regulatory body.

Critics of Project Canvas, including Sky and Virgin Media, will be pleased to get a chance to air their grievances to officials, after having argued that media regulator Ofcom should have conducted a market impact assessment of the proposed service.

more….

Media Guardian

Knowing the OFT they'll probably say it's anti-competitive as they did with Kangeroo, but will be happy to let American companies like Hulu and TV.com take the British Market.

And in the mean time Sky will be able to plough on unchallenged in launching their Anytime+ service, available only to Sky Broadband customers.

Apart from BT Vision, who support this project, other companies haven't exactly been queuing up to launch their own services.

No doubt! Disgusting really.