The Project Canvas joint venture, an open standard aiming to deliver UK broadband television services directly into homes via ISPs and IPTV set-top-boxes (STB), has lost one of its key broadcasting partners - Channel FIVE. The TV channel is currently up for sale and is reviewing its digital strategy, which effectively puts its support for Canvas on hiatus.

However FIVE said that they would continue to support the objectives of Project Canvas and will provide content for it in the future. Canvas is a £16m Joint Venture (JV) between TV broadcasters and Internet Service Providers, including the BBC , ITV , BT , TalkTalk , Channel 4 , Arqiva and Channel Five. The costs of developing and marketing Canvas are likely to sky rocket during its first few years of operation.



However, despite being cleared by the OFT and BBC Trust, Canvas has received some stiff opposition from Sky Broadband (BSkyB) and most notably Virgin Media (here), which claims that working with the project has been difficult because "if [Virgin] want to use their standards we must also accept that the entire Virgin Media entertainment service be accessed by our subscribers via a Canvas-imposed interface, including the Canvas channel listing and search facility. This "shop window" to services would be entirely controlled by the joint venture partners".