London - Three U.K. broadcasters -- the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 -- on Tuesday announced plans to launch an online video-on-demand joint venture in 2008, codenamed "Kangaroo." The U.K. service will carry over 10,000 hours of current and archived TV programming, initially made available for streaming and downloading from the Web, both for free, and as rentals and paid downloads.

The joint venture will be owned equally and will work independently as an aggregator of both joint venture partners' and third party content.

The companies named Lesley MacKenzie, previously director of channels and operations at BSkyB, as launch CEO.

The new service will operate alongside existing offerings such as BBC's iPlayer, ITV.com and Channel 4's 4OD.

"This is a historic partnership between the UK's largest broadcasters," said John Smith, CEO of BBC Worldwide.

"By combining our joint resources we're really taking control of our destiny in a market that's moving at a fast pace."

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/1u9xn (Joint press release)

http://snipurl.com/1u9xs (Reuters)