The venerable institution known as the BBC is planning to embrace some fresh technology: interactive and on-demand IPTV. To that end, the Beeb is spearheading an industry consortium to support Project Canvas, which has a goal of using standards to link different IPTV formats.
The Internet and on-demand will be “absolutely at the heart” of the BBC’s broadcasting going forward. "One of those proposals was the idea that we work across the industry with public service broadcasters, with content owners, with networks and with consumer electronics companies to develop simple standards that would allow the rapid adoption of connected TV in this country," said Richard Halton, the director of programs for BBC IPTV, speaking at the IPTV World Forum in London.
Why is the BBC leaping into the tech world? "For us at the BBC, with a protected, fixed income, it is wildly different and we are in a far better place than many people so we see it as part of our role and duty to share the services that we have in our structure to other companies and particularly in this area with the other public service broadcasters,” he said.
