'Video on demand' plan sunk

Published on Wednesday 4 February 2009 21:02

THE Competition Commission has blocked plans for a video on demand (VOD) joint venture between ITV, BBC Worldwide and Channel 4.

The service, called Project Kangaroo, had been expected to launch last autumn with thousands of hours of TV.

But the Office of Fair Trading referred it to the commission amid concerns it could give the partners too much muscle over prices for their own content.

Plans for the service had included free and paid-for programmes, launching online and eventually on TV sets.

The commission looked at possible remedies and concluded that none proposed could remove the threat to competition in the VOD market.

The commission said it had looked closely at the possible benefits to viewers that the joint venture might bring, but it found that these and other benefits could come just as well from other projects that were less damaging to competition.

It said it expected these alternatives to be more likely to develop in the light of its decision.

Project Kangaroo would have involved creating a "one-stop shop" providing a wide range of UK archive content.

It was argued it would enable the partners to compete against competitors that already had significant assets.