Advanced Television

Kangaroo beta

October 16, 2008

From Colin Mann in Cannes

Project Kangaroo, the joint venture between BBC Worldwide, Channel 4 and ITV, plans to launch in closed beta by the end of the year, CEO Ashley Highfield has said at MIPCOM: “With the Competition Committee’s blessing, we hope to launch in closed beta by Christmas time.”

As to how Kangaroo will look, Highfield would only say: “It will be a closed beta of some sort…that will go on until February. But we need to communicate to bring this to the market.”

He said there had been talks with US studios to bring US films and programmes on to Kangaroo and confirmed he was in talks with Five and large independent producers.

On advertising, Highfield said the platform will launch with minimal ad inventory while pointing towards using behavioural targeting techniques to drive higher CPMs in the future. “Over time we will build demographics so we can optimise ads and achieve higher CPMs. One of the ways which we will sell ads is by looking at what the individual is doing on the site.”

Categories: Articles, OTT, OTT