Prospects for UK broadcasting’s “catch-up” online Kangaroo service launching this year have evaporated given the Competition Commission’s “we need more time” announcement on the joint-venture. The BBC, ITV and Channel 4 are all co-operating on the planned VOD service and had hoped to launch by Q4 this year. The Commission’s announcement has seen similar – and rival - services from Google and Apple criticised.

Each of the broadcasters already has an online VOD service of some sort or other available to viewers, but Kangaroo was unique in that it brought together the UK’s three main terrestrial broadcasters under one all-embracing operation. Now the Competition Commission says it needs more time, and information on the competitive effects of the planned joint venture, before it can issue its decision.

The thoughts are that the information will be available to the CC next month (September) permitting its initial findings to be published in November and a full report in the New Year.

ITV’s executive chairman Michael Grade pressed strong reservations about the delay, saying: “While I understand that the Office of Fair Trading is carrying out its statutory obligations, there is a serious problem with a regulatory framework that seems unable to take the most important interest into account - that of British viewers. As digital distribution gathers pace, we want to make our content available for free to online users in the most accessible way through Kangaroo. This venture has been delayed by a reference to the Competition Commission, at the very same time that non-UK companies like Google and Apple are free to build market-dominating positions online in the UK without so much as a regulatory murmur.”

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