• “Canvas bloke* says he’ll have all docs available by May.” @WillStrauss - that tweet here
  
• “Ooh, got a bit tense there. Canvas bloke* accused of not sharing his spec wit the DTG.” @WillStrauss - that tweet here
• “There are between 2m and 3m Freeview main-set homes that will be interested in Canvas offer: Freeview’s Ilse Howling” - @GLovelace - that tweet here
• “Relationship between Project Canvas and DTG is ‘critical’ and we need to get it right, says Canvas’ Richard Halton “ - @GLovelace - that tweet here
• “Richard Halton acknowledges the role of Humax in the support of the development of Canvas.” - @Bobdvb - that tweet here
• “Project Canvas’ Richard Halton: Cisco, Humax, Technicolor, LG, Sagem, Amino, TVOnics and others keen to make canvas devices” - @CanvasInfo -  that tweet here
• “‘Free-to-air catch-up TV is here and can be in every broadband home via Freeview HD and Freesat’“** - @WillStrauss - that tweet here
• “Futuresource predicting 9.5bn on-demand video views in 2013, 8% of total TV viewing, up from 2.3bn and <2% in 2009″ @GLovelace - that tweet here

And speaking of Twitter, don’t forget you can follow us, and say hi, @ProjectCanvasUK.

* presumably referring to Richard Halton, programme director for Canvas at the BBC.

** we’re not sure who Will was quoting here - likely it was one of the MDs of Freeview (Isle Howling) or FreeSat (Emma Scott)

• 9 Feb - Tubefilter has a look at the possible reasons why Hulu is getting involved in original web series (Simon Fullers’ ‘If I can dream’)
• 10 Feb - Freeview’s upcoming ad campaign will focus on the HD part of Freeview HD, and not mention the internet connectivity of the Freeview HD boxes, nor any specific connected TV opps like Samsung’s iPlayer syndication -  Broadband TV News.   And a survey commissioned by Freeview suggests that 360,000 Sky+ HD households are “likely” to switch to Freeview HD - Guardian article. Lastly, Freeview is solidly entertaining the possibility of 3D channels being available on its platform in the future - possibly in 5 years. Broadband TV News.
• 10 Feb - VAST is a new template for video adserving that aims to standardise video ads around on demand content online & boost advertiser adoption. It’s backed by the IAB, both in the US and here in the UK - and the IAB Video Council here has all the big adservers (except Atlas) and most of the big video content providers (4, ITV, Sky, et al). BrandRepublic blog.
  On a related note, the IAB UK Video Council also have a pretty active community over at their site here.
• 10 Feb - On a related note, New Media Age reports that ITV & Channel 4 have cut their online video rates to boost uptake - perhaps by as much as half.
• 5 Feb - Channel 4 is wanting to start selling pre-rolls alongside its contet on BT Vision, the IPTV offering from BT.  IPTVNews
• 4 Feb - In the US, Hulu’s ‘ad selector’ ad placement - the one where the viewer gets to select which brand they’ll see ads from during the program - has been chosen as best online video ad unit, by Publicis unit VivaKi. MediaWeek article
• 3 Feb - TellyLinks is a new consumer offering  that attempts to capitalise on second screen interest, by showing viewers, on the TellLinks site, links  that are relevant to the program being watched on the TV screen . It’s run by Jeff Henry a former ITV Consumer MD.  Guardian article here.  Its first public trial - an episode of Numbers on Five - didn’t go so well, with the site crashing (one blog post on that night here).
• 1 Feb - Views of Virgin Media VoD service increase 50% year on year, to a total of 750m for 2009. VoD is used by 59% of Virgin’s 3.9mill TV customers. Media Guardian.

• 28 Jan - In Sky’s Dec quarter results call, it made no mention at all of a pull VoD service - something it had/has committed to launching sometieme in 2010. PaidContent:UK.
• 25/26 Jan - SeeSaw - the online VoD service that arose from Project Kangaroo :
  • began the move from alpha testing to wider beta testing , eventually opening to 10,000 users over the next month - news is everywhere
  • launched into the beta phase with content from 4oD and Five, in addition to the publicly announced BBC Worldwide content deal, leaving ITV as the only public service broadcaster it is not carrying. It has also announced deal with Digital Rights Group (DRG) and Perform
  • will have Cadbury, Nivea & Sainsbury’s as launch advertisers - BrandRepublic story
  • has appointed Video Initiatives as its sales hours - same BrandRepublic story / New Media Age says some of the ad inventory - Channel 4 and Five’s - will be sold by the broadcasters’ own sales teams. Seesaw was also, back in December, looking for a head of advertising
  • Update - 17 Feb - SeeSaw today came out of invite-only beta, allowing anyone to access the site.

• 25 Jan - The BBC’s online spin-off of soap East Enders - E20 - racked up 1.7 million views in its first 2.5 weeks. E20 is available on both the EastEnders website, and iPlayer (although the views figure is not split out). BroadbandTVNews.
• 25 Jan - The Guardian has a good look at what newly appointed Channel 4 chief executive can (and cannot) bring to the broadcaster.
• 25 Jan - Research from Informa suggests that global IPTV penetration will be a 70million households by 2014 - representing 5% of total households.  TechDigest.TV
• 21 Jan - BT has launched a new fibre network, with the aim of delivering 40Mbps connections to 10 million homes in the next two years - more info including price details & Virgin Media’s reactions over at The Guardian
• 20 Jan - YouTube is getting into live sport:  it will livestream the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket tournament happening in March. For the UK, because the rights were with now-defunct Setanta, at the moment it means YouTube will be the only place to see the action. The deal includes everywhere but the US market, and gives Youtube exclusive online streaming rights. It’s not clear how much the deal is worth, or what the ad revenue split between the IPL and YouTube is. PaidContent:UK & Guardian articles.
• 15 Jan - The BBC Trust has launched a review of the BBC’s on-demand services. While the 4 services being reviewed are delivered via iPlayer - 7 day catchup via the internet, 7 day catchup via Virgin Media cable, live TV simulcasts, & podcasts - the review does not cover iPlayer itself.  BroadbandTVNews.Anyone wanting to respond to the review, including a survey, can do so here at the BBC Trust site (the review closes 12 March).
• 15 Jan - The iPlayer usage stats for December were released - the PDF from the BBC is here -  showing a continued steady big rise in usage. As TechRadar and NewTeeVee both point out, about 1 in 8 views of iPlayer content is now coming from non-PC based devices.
• 14 Jan - FreeSat have confirmed that the BBC iPlayer will come to Freesat HD general availability over the next few months. MediaWeek article.
• 4 Jan - The BBC continues to defend itself - this time with a report prepared by Deloitte that shows the corporation creates £7.6bn worth of value for the UK economy annually. The Guardian. On a related note, outgoing ITV chairman Michael Grade in a Guardian op-ed piece argues that the government needs to act to protect the British PSBs from overseas players.

The Trust has attached some conditions to its approval of the venture. The below are copied directly from the BBC Trust press release available here:

Main conditions of provisional approval

The Trust proposes to place a number of conditions on the BBC’s participation in the joint venture. Many of these are designed to secure elements of the proposal where we saw particular public value as well as lessen negative market impact where possible. These conditions cover:

• Industry engagement – the core technical specification must be published well in advance of launch to allow all manufacturers to adapt to the Canvas standard.  The BBC must report to the Trust within twelve months of final approval or within three months of launch, whichever is the sooner, and at regular intervals on its progress in achieving industry consensus around technical standards.
• Access to the platform for content providers – must be on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, with minimal technical requirements and content standards and access charges calculated on a cost recovery basis.
• Access for ISPs - any quality standards for ISPs should again be set and applied on a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory basis. This is designed to keep barriers to entry for ISPs to a minimum and avoid the proposal being linked to any one provider or service.
• Syndication – a Trust review, twelve months after launch, to assess what, if any, effects Canvas has on the partners’ incentives to syndicate their content to other platforms.

Other key conditions of the BBC’s involvement are designed to ensure public value:

• Free-to-air – it must always to be possible to access the Canvas platform without a subscription.
• Accessibility and usability – one year after launch, the BBC must report to the Trust on whether the proposed accessibility features, such as audio description, have been incorporated. At that point the Trust will also review signposting of content and parental controls, which we have asked Canvas to provide where possible.
• Cost – the BBC must return for further Trust approval should costs incurred by the Corporation exceed (or be expected to exceed) the Executive’s projections by more than 20 per cent in any one year.

Finally, there are some conditions to ensure compliance with the law:

• An independent audit must be carried out of relevant BBC research and development spending in order to verify that pre-launch Canvas-related BBC expenditure costs have been or will be shared equally between the partners.
• Where the BBC has already or proposes to frontload project spending by making initial commercial loans to the other Canvas partners, loans should also be available to the other or any new partners of the same creditworthiness on commercial terms.
• BBC involvement in Canvas must be kept operationally separate from its involvement in Freesat and Freeview.

Finally, a public consultation period on the provisional decision commences today, and closes on 2 February  (after which time the Trust will make their final ruling concering the BBC’s involvement, in the spring).

Friday came and went with no news, however this morning both the FT and The Guardian are reporting from “sources” that the BBC Trust is about to / has already approved Project Canvas.

The FT article is here, and says the project has gotten Trust approval, with some minor conditions.

The Guardian article is here, and says the project is being approved now, with some significant conditions.

Not surprisingly, the official Canvas site and twitter feed are staying quiet for now.

===========

A reminder too about our Twitter feed - @ProjectCanvasUK - where we’ll often post links/articles link the ones above quicker than a blog post here.

===========

Update - 13.00: PaidContent UK says the BBC Trust will publish their provisional conclusions on their site at 10am Tuesday (22nd).

Right at the moment, Project Canvas.info, the official Canvas site, is down (the error msg says “projectcanvas.info is being upgraded”), but it looks like the news/announcement page should be here when the site is back up.

There is also a Broadband TV News article here, and a Media Week article here.

One huge benefit to securing two new partners is that the cost of involvement will fall from £24m for each partner, for the first 4 years, down to £16m.

• 14 Dec: The BBC continues its  charm offensive with an article about Project Canvas with future media and technology controller Erik Huggers in The Indpendent here.
• 3 Dec: The Project Canvas partners have launched a dedicated site for the initiative: ProjectCanvas.info . The BBC Internet Blog post here (from Richard Halton, project director). There is also a Twitter account - @canvasinfo (albeit a bit light on currently).
• 2 Dec: Freesat is looking at using Project Canvas standards to deliver progressive HD on-demand downloads . TechRadar article here.
• 25 Nov: Erik Huggers, at The Media Festival, has warned that Canvas boxes might not go on sale until 2011 (instead of the original target of 2010) if approval from the BBC Trust does not come by the end of this year. The Telegraph article here.
• 25 Nov: A provisional conclusion on Project Canvas is still hope to be delivered before this year is out, the BBC Trust  has told Paid Content UK. Blog post here.
• 24 Nov: Sky, in its third submission to the BBC Trust, again criticised Project Canvas: specifically the BBC’s involvement; and that the relaxed condition of becoming a partner in the project - no longer is it only PSBs allowed - still does not practically allow any organisation to join up because of the high cost of partnership.  Guardian article here.  Sky’s submission document here (PDF - 85kb).
• 13 Nov: Sky & Virgin agree there is no need for Project Canvas - at the C21 Media conference. PaidContentUK post here.
• 11 Nov: Ben Bradshaw, culutre secretary, has been urged by the House of Lords communication committee to “strong arm” the Competition Commission into approving Project Canvas (so it does not suffer the same fate as Kangaroo) . Broadcast article here. Digital Spy article here.
• 10 Nov: Richard Waterworth has been promoted to the new ITV position of platform marketing, covering Project Canvas as well as itv.com. Marketing Week article here.

• Dec 7: BT - through their wholesle arm - are trialling an initiative called “Content Connect” whose aim is to improve video delivery by hosting popular video content at the actual ISP.  There’s a good Guardian article here (which says that the trails include BBC and 4oD content). There is also a presentation from BT Wholesale on Content Connect from 12 months ago, posted on Scribd here.
• Dec 3: Five announced that it has bring its on-demand catalogue to YouTube, joining Channel 4. Broadband TV News article. PaidContent UK article.
• Dec 2: Seesaw - the Arqiva-owned VoD initiative that was Project Kangaroo - has signed up its first content: some shows from BBC Worldwide.  DTG post.
• Dec 2: Freeview HD was turned on. It was more a technical milestone than a c0mmercial one, but it gets a mainstream Freeview HD push closer. Broadband TV News article.  It was also announced on the same day that (regular) Freeview passed the mark of being in 10 million homes.
• Also, at the Freeview HD launch, Freeview MD Ilse Howling also commented that they are looking at brining IPTV services to DTT. Digital Spy article.
• Nov 28: Reportedly, BBC iPlayer won’t be coming to the Xbox 360 anytime soon, because of Microsoft’s policy of charging for content access (through Xbox Live) conflicting with the BBC’s public access remit . Telegraph article here.
• Nov 27: Tivo has partnered with Virgin Media to return to the UK - they’ll be powering a new Virgin set top box (STB). Broadband TV News article.
• Nov 27: The BBC released some detailed iPlayer usage statistics (likely in a bid to be seen to be more open, and also to demonstrate the appetitite for on-demand). The BBC Internet Blog post is here. The file itself is available here (PPT - 2.4mb). And CXO magazine have made some of the stats into an infographic here.

• The total project cost, for the first four years, has been revised up to £115.6m.
• This would put the cost for each of the current 4 partners at £24.7mill, after a projected £17mill in cost recovery
• However the project is going to be opened up to 6 partners in total, which would bring the cost per each partner around the original forecast cost £16mill.
• These two new project partners could be non-public service broadcasters, a change to the BBC’s original plan for the partners to only be PSBs. (There is no change to the actual participation - from hardware producers to content providers - being open to all-comers.)

Update (14:30): The statement and all the relevant documents can be found here on the BBC Trust site. The Trust is soliciting  feedback on the revised proposed structure and cost until 18 November.

• Oct 12: Sky once again publicly released its submission to the BBC Trust - this time it was their response to the second consultation on Canvas. Unsurprisingly Sky’s views aren’t a ringing endorsement - or any endorsement - of the Project. Our blog post here has the relevant links including the full Sky submission, and a response from the BBC on behalf of all the Project Canvas partners.
• Oct 8: It was announced (at Mipcom) that Canvas is trying to work with HbbTV (the Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV initiative - a ‘European Canvas’ of sorts, at least in result if not structure)   IPTV News article here.
• Sep 24: The Digital TV Group (DTG) had its first open meeting about Project Canvas. We’ve only been able to find one wrap-up of the day, from Informitv here, and it is less than glowing. Definitely worth a read.

About VOD & IPTV more generally:

• Oct 21: It’s increasingly looking like VOD poster-child Hulu will introduce paid access of some form in 2010. Most likely is it will be for some form of premium access, with the bulk of the site and recent shows remaining ad supported. B&C article here.
• Oct 20: The BBC Trust has rejected the proposal from BBC management to create Open iPlayer. The reason given? The mix of public and commercial aspects of its current state made it too complex to evaluate. This was the initiative that was originally know as Project Marquee, and concerned a single gateway site for public service broadcasters’ VoD efforts. The actual full proposal was never made public due to cited commercial confidentiality reasons. First found via article here at BroadcastNow. Plenty of coverage at Google News.
• Oct 15: Channel 4 & YouTube announced a deal that will see all of their original shows put up YouTube in their entirety, supported by ads.  The deal sees Channel 4 able to sell YouTube inventory beyond just their own shows too, and the rumour is that C4 keep the majority of sales revenue. First found via TechCrunch UK. Plenty of coverage at Google News.

Don’t forget too - a lot of the above news we mention via Twitter as and when it’s happening - @ProjectCanvasUK .