Canvas to launch within year, says BT’s Watson

Project Canvas, the proposed video-on-demand service for Freeview and Freesat TVs in the UK, should be launched within the next year, according to Marc Watson, CEO of BT Vision, the UK telco’s existing IPTV service.

Watson told the Broadcast Media Summit in London yesterday that the technical standards for the service should be finalised by the summer, according to the Guardian newspaper. He said that BT hoped to use the appeal of the service to increase its triple-play subscriber base

Watson said that Canvas would enable the distribution of pay-TV as well as free-to-air content, with the latter allowing distributors to make additional money through charging a premium for targeted advertising. He said that platform would be run in a non-discriminatory way and that pay-TV provider BSkyB – hitherto a dedicated opponent of the project – was welcome to participate.