By Tim Ferguson, 15 April 2008 14:30
NEWS
BBC director of future media and technology, Ashley Highfield, is to leave the corporation to head up the Kangaroo online TV service.
Highfield will become CEO of Kangaroo, which is a joint venture between BBC Worldwide, ITV and Channel 4 to create a shared on-demand online media player.
BBC iPlayer: Latest coverage
♦ BBC plugs iPlayer hack loophole
♦ BBC iPlayer lands on iPhone
♦ Cheat Sheet: BBC iPlayer
♦ BBC iPlayer gets 3.5 million hits
♦ Open sourcers welcome BBC iPlayer for Linux
♦ BBC signs up with iTunes
♦ BBC's iPlayer is go
♦ BBC iPlayer sparks broadband row
♦ 16,000 back iPlayer petition
♦ Leader: Time for a ceasefire in iPlayer row
Kangaroo is pencilled in to launch later this year and will provide more than 10,000 hours of free and paid-for content, which can be streamed or downloaded.
Highfield will take over from interim CEO Lesley Mackenzie and will be involved in negotiations with third-party content owners, as well as distributing Kangaroo on other platforms.
Highfield said the move is a fantastic opportunity and he is looking forward to "transforming the way audiences watch television".
The heads of the partner broadcasters welcomed the appointment. Channel 4 CEO Andy Duncan said Highfield is "one of the most influential players in digital media" making him the ideal CEO to drive Kangaroo forwards.
Highfield has been in charge of the BBC iPlayer project which, although initially controversial, has since proved to be a real success.
During the first three months of the year iPlayer received 42 million requests for streamed or downloaded programmes, according to the BBC.
ITV and Channel 4 also have their own on-demand services which Kangaroo is intended to complement with the addition of archived content.
Comments
There are 2 comments. Join the discussion
1. Karen Challinor
what would be nice is a compatible format between all the channels that have download services so we only need a single application on the PC's to view them
after all the tuner in the tv manages to see every channel and display it so why do we need a different player for each channel over the internet
2. Julian Nicholls
Presumably, one player is what will be the end-result.
Currently, the 4oD player from Channel 4 and the BBC iPlayer cannot co-exist on one PC because they are both the Kontiki player at heart.