Decipher's Nigel Walley called on delegates to engage with Project Canvas, the planned VoD venture from BBC, ITV and BT. He said that for the ad industry Canvas could be either an opportunity or plain alarming as a lost opportunity. Canvas can, he said, bring Freeview and Freesat back into the "commercial sphere", referring to the BBC's attempts to make Freeview a success by making at as low spec as possible by precluding certain ad opportunities. Controversially, he said the BBC must not be allowed to run Canvas without the aqd industry taking a leading role, or else, he warned, a raft of commercial opportunities will be lost.
A call to arms indeed. Many delegates dont know what Canvas is, so, Nigel's comments are a timely intervention at a time when the BBC and ITV look to Canvas to do for TV what iPlayer did for online TV.
Tristan O'Carroll
