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Media
SeeSaw to close
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 31 May 2011
I’m not sure anyone but me cares, but SeeSaw is shutting, booooo! The TV-on-demand website, which carries mainly Channel 4 and BBC archive programming, plus some US shows, uses technology originally developed by Project Kangaroo, the online telly platform planned by the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 but blocked by the competition regulator.
The platform ended up being owned by broadcast infrastructure company Arqiva. They had been looking for a new investor or a buyer for the service, which offers some programming for free funded by advertising, while other shows are available on a pay-per-view basis.
A bit like a commercial BBC iPlayer, SeeSaw competes mainly with on-demand services operated by the broadcasters it licenses shows off, though it many ways it was also set to compete with YouView when it launches, possibly later this year.
YouView, of course, is the newer video-on-demand JV between the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, which began life as a technology standard for VOD devices, but which now is set to become a stand-alone service, albeit one based around set-top boxes rather than your computer.
Arquiva announced last week that no buyer had been found for SeeSaw, and that they had therefore decided to turn the service off in late July. The service’s 28 staff were told on Friday.
The asking price is probably too high, but ITV should seriously consider buying SeeSaw; compared to most of the third channel’s other questionable online ventures it would be a good buy, and with their ad-selling power might just work. And if nothing else, it would enable them to replace their proprietary web-based ITV Player with something that actually works.
