Project Kangaroo officially blocked: First take

Hulu, Joost, Virgin Media, and many more can breathe a little easier for now. The Competition Commission in the UK have this morning released their decision on the VOD joint project between Channel 4, ITV, and BBC Worldwide: Kangaroo has been deemed to control too much originial UK content between the 3 parties involved, to go ahead.

From the press release, citing Commision Chairman Peter Freeman:

"The case is essentially about the control of UK-originated TV content. VOD is an exciting and fast-moving development in TV, which makes programmes previously broadcast available to viewers at a time of their choice. The evidence we saw showed that UK viewers particularly value programmes produced and originally shown in the UK and do not regard other content as a good substitute.

BBC Worldwide, ITV and Channel 4 together control the vast majority of this material, which puts them in a very strong position as wholesalers of TV content to restrict competition from other current and future providers of VOD services to UK viewers. We thought the joint venture parties would have an interest in doing so, in order to make Project Kangaroo a success."

The history of the project is well documented all over the web so I won't go into it here. But it is safe to say no one really knew which way the Commission was leaning until today's publication of their final findings - the FT for example published two stories within a matter of 8 hours, the first saying the project would get a green light, the second saying no.

Part of the reason for no clear sight on what the Commission's final ruling would be was the time allowed, after their prelim ruling was published in December last year, for the Kangaroo team as well as other interested parties/competititors time to adapt their original proposal.

The full report is also out now, so I might be back with more thoughts after I read that.

Update 1: Robert over at PaidContent has got the response from the Project Kangaroo parties:

"The consortium issued its response within 10 minutes of the verdict:
“We are disappointed by the decision to prohibit this joint venture.
While this is an unwelcome finding for the shareholders, the real
losers from this decision are British consumers. This is a disproportionate remedy and a missed opportunity in the further development of British broadcasting.”

ITV executive chairman Michael Grade: “We are surprised by this
decision because we believed that the Kangaroo joint venture, competing
in a crowded online world against dominant global brands, was an
attractive UK consumer proposition, free at the point of use. However,
in the two years since the idea for Kangaroo was born, the success of
ITV.com has proved that our UK content is attractive enough to stand on
its own and we remain focussed on our online growth."

Update 2: From The Guardian, it's looking like there'll be no further challenge from UKVOD, and that each of ITV, C4, and BBCWW will announce their own plans in time.