Kangaroo "caught"

"heavy heavy heavy"

Delays, questions over it's financial viability and it's eventual sale in 2009 project Kangaroo has spent a lot of time in the press - for the wrong reasons.

The Video On Demand service which envisioned the three main UK terrestrial broadcasters serving content through a shared portal was blocked in 2009 by the competition commission; for fear of this collection of content producers monopolising the sector and therefore becoming too powerful.

Costing an estimated £25 million in staffing, development and programme rights signified this was no token effort in the VOD space.

Swings and roundabouts

Now it has resurfaced under the banner of "SeeSaw" boasting over 3,000 hours of online content from the BBC, Channel 4 and FIVE.

Currently the service is free, supported by advertising - with paid content due to be launched on the site by the middle of the year.

The future

On the horizon we have BSkyB's entrance into this space and the launch of project Canvas which will deliver content from multiple providers and sources through set-top boxes.

So an ever increasingly crowded space can only mean ever more fragmented choice and confusion for consumers - with a limited library of quality programming.

*Viewing figures online are still tiny when compared to TV - even more so when you consider the number of abandons ( i.e consumers not watching the entire programme ) is significantly higher in the online space.

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Just how SeeSaw expects to derive enough revenue is going to be interesting - consider all the other players are both content producers and have elements of success in the traditional broadcast, therefore splitting their risk with dual revenue streams. SeeSaw will rely 100% on online revenue generation - something the likes of YouTube and Hulu have been grappling with for a long time.

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**Launch

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It is promoting its full launch with an ad campaign on Channel 4, Five and ITV – (with which it is yet to secure a deal to show content.)

The £5m campaign has been created by Fallon, which is famous for making the Cadbury Gorilla ad.

Update: Advertising inventory on the platform has now sold out until May without the need for discounting. Is this a simple case of brands wanting to ride the wave of promotion and buzz around the project or a precedence for the future of VOD.
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*iPlayer viewing figures

The top five BBC iPlayer shows in January 2010 were:

1. Top Gear Series 14, Episode 7 - 1,135,000 requests
2. Doctor Who: The End of Time Part 2 - 831,000 requests
3. Gavin and Stacey Series 3 Episode 6 - 700,000 requests
4. Mock the Week Series 8 Episode 1 - 658,000 requests
5. Tracy Beaker Returns Episode 1 - 565,000 requests

The figures show TV on the iPlayer was most popular between 8pm and 10pm in January – similar hours to TV peak time – while noon is the time most people listen to radio on the iPlayer.

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*source : guardian.co.uk

** source : NMA