Digital TV News

Project Canvas could come to mobiles, but not yet

Tuesday 6 July, 2010

By Becca Talbot - becca@consumerchoices.co.uk

Project Canvas, the new on-demand TV venture being developed by the BBC, aims to launch next spring, but viewing will be restricted to TV screens initially.

It’s unlikely that telly addicts will be able to access Project Canvas content on their mobiles when the digital TV platform launches next year, said the TV service’s chief technology officer, Anthony Rose.

Project Canvas, a new next-generation Freeview on-demand TV service, will allow Brits to watch catch-up TV on services such as the BBC iPlayer as well as the standard TV channels via an internet-connected set-top box.

Speaking at Intel’s Shaping the Future of TV conference last week, Rose said: “The problem is not about the technology but the content rights. By creating fragment offerings too soon, you will confuse the market.”

“We will have a Canvas website where you can look at listings and choose your favourite shows and this will go straight to your box, but we will keep things on the TV at the moment and not on mobiles or any other devices.”

The service, which is being developed by the BBC and partners ITV, Channel 4, Five, BT, TalkTalk and Arqiva, is expected to launch on set-top boxes in early 2011, and will bring “internet TV to the masses”.

Jon Ingram, operations director at Digitalchoices.co.uk, said: “It will be interesting to see if the partners decide to develop a mobile TV service too.

“A scale-downed BBC iPlayer has just been made available for Google Android smartphones, offering perfect TV viewing for anyone on the move. Maybe Project Canvas will offer a similar platform, making all the video-on-demand services available via one mobile app?”