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The companies behind Project Canvas – the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ, BT, Channel 4, Five, ITV and Talk Talk – today welcomed the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Trust's positive provisional conclusions on Project Canvas.

Since February 2009, the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Trust has been assessing whether the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ should participate in a new joint venture, set up by the partners to run the TV platform and licence the user experience and brand to participating manufacturers.

The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Trust today gave a conditional approval to the proposals, subject to the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ and its partners meeting a number of conditions and a further period of consultation.

In publishing its provisional conclusions, the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Trust has clearly given full consideration to a very wide range of issues in a rigorous assessment of the proposals.

While the partners note the conditions, they are pleased that the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Trust has provisionally agreed to the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's involvement in the project.

The partners note that concerns from the industry, raised during the process, have been addressed in these interim conclusions. They expect to address the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Trust's conditions as part their response to the consultation.

Project Canvas director Richard Halton said: "As a partnership comprising of both public service and profit-making businesses, we believe Project Canvas can be a significant enabling force for the UK's creative digital economy and we welcome today's announcement.

"By creating an open environment for internet-connected TV we open the door for a wide range of important online public services to reach TV audiences, and support a competitive open marketplace for commercial digital services.

"By creating an open platform based on the free-to-air principles that enabled Freeview and Freesat to take the benefits of digital TV to a wider audience, we now have an opportunity to offer consumers real choice over how they access and enjoy digital content in the future."

Notes to Editors

For further information, visit the partners' website at http://projectcanvas.info.

MB1