Competition regulators clear Project Canvas

Ofcom and OFT give Freeview-on-demand joint venture green light

On 19 October 2010 Ofcom announced that it would not investigate Project Canvas, the proposed joint venture between a number of broadcasters (including the BBC and ITV) and communications companies (including BT and TalkTalk). Project Canvas has therefore been given the green light to offer digital terrestrial channels and internet-delivered television services to consumers, via a set-top box that is connected to television sets.

At first sight, Project Canvas sounds very similar to Project Kangaroo, a joint venture where three of the UK’s biggest TV broadcasters intended to merge their online video-on-demand services into one single platform, and which was blocked by the Competition Commission in 2009 over fears that it would hurt competition. This article examines the differences between the two joint ventures, and why both the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) and Ofcom declined to investigate Project Canvas under both the Enterprise Act 2002 and the Competition Act 1998, shortly after the OFT and the Competition Commission (CC) declared Project Kangaroo to be incompatible with competition law.

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This article was first published in Entertainment Law Review at Ent. L.R. (2011) Vol.22 No.2.

Lawyers Robert Vidal, Louisa Penny