Newsdesk (week 2 - Jake)

Rival TV Companies to form On-Demand Media Streaming Service.

Telvision companies Channel4 , ITV and the BBC are about to unveil plans to launch a new on-demand online streaming service.

The as-of-yet unnamed service, which is hoping to go live in 2008, will dwarf the current UK TV streaming services available at present. As the service will carry both old and current material in its archives it will hold many thousands of hours of content.
What is yet unknown, however is what media player(s) the new service will depend on - and if (the much controversial) 'DRM' anti-copy technology from Microsoft will be applied to it .
Interestingly, all three channels involved in this project have already launched their own channel specific streaming services, with each one having its own problems and luke-warm reception.
ITV and the BBC have already confirmed that there own services, iPlayer and ITV.com will continue to exist and serve to 'compliment' the new joint venture service.
Channel 4 however, have announced that their own streaming service, '4oD', will be dropped once properly integrated into the new project.

The project has been hailed as an "Historic Partnership" between the competing companies - by the chief executive of BBC Worldwide John Smith. ITV's executive chairman, Michael Grade, said that new service will be "an important shop window for UK broadcasters, and a great destination for viewers"
Channel 4's chief executive, Andy Duncan has said that this service will "give viewers total control over what they watch and when they watch it".

I will be watching this unfold with great interest.