SeeSaw online TV streaming service shuts down

It's been coming for a while

SeeSaw online TV streaming service shuts down. Online, Video on demand, Seesaw, Arqiva 0

31 October 2011 7:47 GMT / By Ben Crompton

The video on demand streaming service SeeSaw has now closed, after a lack of investment and dwindling content meant viewers were turning off.

This has been on the cards for some time as Pocket-lint reported back in May that Arqiva hoped to sell the service "as part of an ongoing strategic business review".

A buyer was, in fact, found in the form of a group of investors which included Bebo owners, Criterion Capital Partners, who stumped up the cash in July and took on a majority stake.

However its investment clearly hasn't paid off with both Channel 4 and Channel 5 pulling content prior to this closure announcement.

SeeSaw was born out of the ashes of Project Kangeroo, an aborted TV catch-up service that was to be a joint initiative with BBC, Channel 4 and ITV.

Ian Maude, head of Internet at Enders Analysis commented:

"In the end they didn't have the backing they needed to make it - the kind of content that drives significant levels of usage, they were in a very competitive market. ITV wouldn't supply them content, and Channel 4 only did for a while. With competition from Google's YouTube they just didn't have a chance."

Via: bbc.co.uk

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Online, Video on demand, Seesaw, Arqiva