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back to article 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 …

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  1. Tony Humphreys
    Stop

    No wonder!

    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.

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    1. Michael B.
      Reply Icon

      Hasn't been true in a long time

      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.

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    2. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Some Info...

      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.

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  2. Dan Wilkie

    Well there's your problem

    Michael Jackson's dead... Honestly, where's your journalistic research skills?

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  3. TheKeffster

    Writing on the wall a long time ago

    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".

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  4. N13L5

    aside from other issues

    Seesaw is just a bad idea for a name... I remember people saying they got "seesawed" after loosing money in day trades...

    like bad verbal Feng-Shui

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  5. Oli 1

    From what i saw of SeaSaw it was awful. I use boxee on a number of PCs and i dont think i ever got to the end of a programme due to buffering or something else going wrong.

    Also, having to pay for BBC content is a big no no!

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