Channel 4’s response to the BBC Trust’s review of the BBC’s involvement in YouView

Overview:

Channel 4 welcomes the opportunity to comment on the BBC Trust’s review of the BBC’s involvement with YouView. Channel 4 remains supportive of the BBC’s involvement in the YouView platform and believes that the BBC has a fundamental role to play in the future development and evolution of the platform.

Channel 4 has been involved in YouView since it was founded in 2010 and believes that the project has been a great success, delivering connected TV to over 500,000 homes since its launch a little over a year ago in July 2012. The speed of this take up can be put into perspective when matched against the account sign ups achieved by Sky in the same year (c. 34,000). We believe this growth will continue as viewers look to upgrade their set top boxes and we expect YouView to become the UK’s most popular platform.

The area of most relevance to Channel 4 in the BBC Trust’s review is the question as to whether YouView has any effect on the syndication of our content to other platforms.

Channel 4 can confirm the existence of YouView in no way affects the syndication of our content to other platforms nor does it play any role in the decision making process that leads to syndication. We have provided further detail in response to this question below.

Answers to specific questions

1. Does YouView provide the full range of accessibility and usability features that were envisaged at launch and do these deliver all of the intended benefits?

Channel 4 believes that the accessibility and usability features enabled by YouView are extremely advanced relative to other platforms. These include subtitling and Audio Description (for SD, HD and VOD), sign language (including a dedicated signed area for VOD), Zoom and an accessible mobile application. Despite this the platform is not standing still, YouView continues to work closely with RNIB and Scope to ensure the platform is a leader in providing accessibility features. The continued development of an alternate user interface designed specifically to meet the needs of the visually impaired is proof of this commitment.

The YouView board also continues to give full consideration to the development of other accessibility features such as integrated text to speech for the platform and will balance the delivery of these features against their cost implications and the likely effect such features might have on the price of the device.

2. Does YouView have any effect on the incentives of joint venture partners to syndicate their content to other platforms?

Channel 4 does not believe that YouView or the BBC’s involvement in the platform has had any material effect on the incentives of its joint venture partners to syndicate their content to other platforms.

Channel 4 currently makes 4oD content available on a broad range of platforms (15 in total) and many of these deals were struck after the launch of YouView. Syndication deals with Sky, Freesat, LoveFilm, Samsung, and Android were all made after the launch of YouView.

In the same period we also renewed syndication deals with Virgin Media and BT Vision which were originally struck in 2006/7 (before the launch of YouView). We also make our content available on iTunes, Netflix, PlayStation, Xbox, YouTube and Windows. While all of these deals were made before the launch of YouView the majority were after our initial investment in the platform.

We believe that the diversity of the platforms on which we offer Channel 4 content, and the continued offering of that content after the launch of the YouView platform clearly demonstrates that YouView has had no effect on the incentives to syndicate content to other platforms.

The process Channel 4 follows when deciding whether to syndicate our content to other platforms looks at the scale of the platform and therefore the potential commercial return for involvement. It also takes into account the complexity of development (both in terms of cost and operational fit with existing workflows and services) and the proximity to the customer that a particular platform allows us. This process is not affected by the existence of YouView and nor do we expect it to be in the future.

3. Does YouView provide appropriate information and signposting to enable viewers to make informed choices about the content they watch?

Channel 4 believes that YouView provides viewers with a simple, intuitive and user friendly interface, which provides layers of useful information and effective signposting, allowing viewers to make informed decisions about the content they watch.

4. Is the BBC cross‐promotional code working effectively in relation to YouView?

Channel 4 believes that the BBC cross promotional code has been extremely effective. The BBC has been very open and it is clear that it has not overly promoted YouView and certainly not at the expense of other platforms. This was demonstrated in the recent “Get Connected” campaign.

Far from overly promoting YouView, Channel 4 would argue that the BBC could do more to promote the platform across its different services. Channel 4 believes the case for this is especially strong given the Public Service benefits that YouView, as a connected, universally available and free at the point of use platform, provides viewers.