Sky execs will no doubt be whistling their way to work this morning - if it's possible to be cheery when travelling to the Osterley campus (it's not exactly Googleplex) - flushed with the news that not only have they landed the prized Premier League rights for another three years, but Project Kangaroo, the high-profile VoD venture backed by BBC, ITV and Channel 4 has been binned by the Competition Commission.
As far as the football is
concerned, thank God. As an early complainer that we suddenly had to pay to
watch football on TV, I am now a true convert to the church of Keys,
Stelling and Rednapp.
What Sky has done for
football coverage in the last decade cannot be over-estimated. See ITV's
appalling intro for its FA Cup coverage - strangely reminiscent of When
Saturday Comes if only in its misjudged sentiment - for how rival broadcasters can
still get it utterly wrong.
And if ITV producers think
Robbie Earl, (nice, but hardly compelling), and that Irish bloke who used to do
the Holiday programme can anchor the main
highlights show with any kind of credibility, they are forever to remain lower
league.
As for Kangaroo. It's another
pot of cash down the digital drain, but I'm not really sure it makes that much
difference. They're not going to put all the old content into a single player so
I'll have to click an extra time to switch websites. Is that such a chore?
It may be a marginally less attractive offering for the consumer, but does it
diminish the online value of Dad's Army-on-demand, because it no longer sits in the same
VoD player as Wife Swap? I would have thought the opposite.
And surely the CC decision
doesn't prevent the original backers using the platform, jointly developed -
and already showcased to agencies - just individually rather than collectively.
As they were planning on
selling their own ad inventory anyway, what the individual broadcasters are
losing due to the CC decision is surely marginal. It's a blow, and a missed
opportunity, but will hardly spell the end of VoD ambitions for any of the UK's
main broadcasters.
And it certainly opens the
door for online commercial independents to aggregate video content rather than
it being the sole domain of the big three. Watch this space for the rise of
numerous operations filling the Kangaroo void.
