Twenty months after the venture was announced, the Competition Commission has now finally blocked the Kangaroo VOD project from launching, reiterating that its trio of shareholders would control too much UK VOD and concluding that “none of the … remedies proposed could remove the threat to competition in the VOD market” (release and final report).
This is a massive blow to BBC Worldwide, ITV (LSE: ITV) and Channel 4, who wanted to pool their archive content for sale and ad-supported free download through the service but which are all now denied that extra income. BBC iPlayer, ITV Player and Channel4.com, each designed only to show only programmes from the last seven days, now have no single on-ramp to long-tail revenue.
The consortium issued its response within 10 minutes of the verdict: