The end of Project Kangaroo?

Well so it may seem…It’s been reported on Brand Republic today, that Project Kangaroo, the on-demand joint venture between BBC Worldwide, ITV and Channel 4, has been blocked by the Competition Commission, after allegedly spending £25m on staff and development costs since announcement of the platform in November 2007. There were high hopes for the platform which for advertisers meant reining in the rapidly growing video on-demand market, by offering a central platform for users to view popular programming on offer from BBC Worldwide, ITV and Channel 4.



Despite the fact that throughout the last year or so there has always been conversations regarding the concerns that "there was a danger that the platform could be too powerful" (30 June 2008, the UK's Office of Fair Trading referred the proposal to the Competition Commission), it seemed the platform would still be launched intially in 2008, which was later moved back to early 2009. Today however with the news of the end of the venture, it appears that rivals to Project Kangaroo including Virgin Media, Babelgum and Joost will be cheering, after all calling on the commission to block the platform.

From early polls and comments on the news, the agency world seems reasonably split on the decision of the CC. However I seem to think that with the ammount of work which has already gone into Project Kangaroo, I don’t think this is the last we’ve seen of some sort of joint video on-demand venture between BBC Worldwide, ITV and Channel 4. Watch this space I guess!!

For the full Brand Republic article click here: Kangaroo killed off by Competition Commission