SeeSaw shut down UK video-on-demand service SeeSaw has closed down. Founder Arqiva, the company that owns and runs Britain's terrestrial digital TV transmission infrastructure, put SeeSaw up for sale in January 2011. Unable to find a buyer, it announced the service's closure would take place the following June. At the eleventh hour, Arqiva …
No one should pay for TV they have already paid for. All the BBC's output was paid for with the TV license.
Although what really bugs me is that stuff like Father Ted (I know, not BBC and supported by adverts) was only available paid for, where this is available for free on Hulu (supported by adverts) in the USA.
I would rather pay for HMA than SeeSaw as there is more on Hulu than on SeeSaw.
Rip of Britain again.
The BBC were forced by the government in 1991 to start using independent production companies and in the communications act 2003 they were set a quote of 25% that they had to achieve. The upshot is that all those programmes that you have paid for are actually owned by somebody else.
Even those that are wholly produced by the BBC will have complicated contractual and copyright restrictions. Actors will want residuals. Music and image will be restricted in terms of rebroadcasting and might have to be re-cleared, at a substantial fee, if they were to put the output on a website for free.
The BBC content on Seesaw was from BBC Worldwide which is the commercial arm of the BBC.
They are the one's that sell things such as the BBC Dvd's and run BBC America and resell BBC content around the world.
The BBC content that Seesaw had was not available on BBC or iplayer and was archive content thats why you had to "pay" (watch a few adverts).
On a side note most of Seesaw's advertising revenue went to the content provider.
The writing was on the wall a long time ago, even well before the 11th hour buyout. Dwindling content was the biggest sign, to the point where last week the site was so empty of it the average visitor would have thought there was a technical error. "Latest content" panels empty and category after category coming up as "Nothing found".
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2023
