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Three UK media giants-BBC Worldwide, ITV, and Channel 4-announced recently that they are joining hands to launch an on-demand content service in 2008. This service is tentatively called 'Kangaroo'. It will start with the Web first, and then explore the mobile medium later. Something like 10,000 hours of TV programs will be available for download.

Interesting bit of news there. Why would people who fight tooth and nail otherwise shake hands to get their content on one platform? Not only that, it will look at sourcing content from other quality content providers. On the face of it, there is a lot of value on offer. The viewer gets a whole lot more content from a single place, turning it into a video supermarket of sorts. Advertisers get more viewers at one place, and get the opportunity to run more focused campaigns. And content providers wanting to hit the big league get a platform to showcase their, well, shows.

But one can't stop wondering why this is really happening. Something else is changing the user behavior, which has these giants get up and make a dash for the eyeballs. And that's the video community websites, leading the pack of which is Google's YouTube. When Google acquired YouTube for $1.65 bn, media companies did sit up and take notice. And now that YouTube has partnerships with CBS, BBC, Universal Music Group, Sony Music Group, Warner Music Group, NBA, and Sundance Channel, the power of the tube seems to be shifting online.

BBC runs a news channel on YouTube in which 30 news clips are uploaded daily. Similarly, all these big names sport some channel or the other on YouTube. Recently, Oprah Winfrey too started a channel on the site which shows behind-the-scenes shots and videos on guests that are not aired on TV.

Then there are platforms like Joost, which distribute TV shows and other forms of video using peer-to-peer TV technology. In India, Rediff.com and Zoom have joined hands to broadcast content using the media sharing platform, Rediff iShare.

YouTube reached the tie-ups with the media boys by first building the user-generated video base; the new UK partnership, Kangaroo, seems to be taking the reverse approach. Offering copyrighted and third party content in an effort to compete with the user generated stuff. One guesses that user generated content could be a part later. TV viewing is no more about what the broadcaster is doling out. It is a wave, with sites taking the fancy and fanning the creativity of the young generation. They spot a video and create a new video that builds from it. Others watch and build on further. A good change from the soaps.

However, it is not always about originality. A lot of content out there on the video sharing sites is copyrighted content. YouTube and others do acknowledge this and have put in filters to stop this. But as the copyright owners say, it's not good enough. So, while partnerships with media companies do bring in copyrighted content legally, it's not half as appealing as the videos that manage to find their way into these sites. Either filtering gets better, or the media companies grin and bear it-both seem like an unlikely proposition right now.

It makes sense for a common platform to be created by media giants. On their own, their on-demand service has limited appeal. Clubbed together, they have a better chance with the viewers. And once you start adding viewer content as well, you get a good combination to cater to the video sharing community.

It's a potent mix. And with mobiles becoming the next screen of action, this space can only hot up. The idiot box evolves!

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