Project management
The BBC Trust - the organisation that supposedly safeguards the best interests of BBC license fee payers - has provisionally ruled in favour of the Beeb's continued involvement in Project Canvas, according to a report in the FT.
Project Canvas was created last February by the BBC to create an open UK standard for IPTV - TV broadcast via the Internet. It has subsequently been joined by the other main free-to-air TV channels as well as ISPs BT and Talk Talk.
Sky, which competes with all of the above and has its own proprietary technology, is unsurprisingly critical of the project. We assume Virgin isn't too chuffed either, and the perennial issue of how fair it is for a state-sponsored organisation to compete with purely commercial ones shows no sign of going away.
The FT cites anonymous sources for this announcement, and it has yet to be confirmed by the BBC Trust, but it's thought that we are now one step closer to being able to buy Project Canvas set-top boxes for around £200 next year.
The addition of Channel 4 and Talk Talk to the project last week could possibly have convinced a previously prevaricating BBC Trust that this is the way forward, the timing would certainly seem to be more than a coincidence.
UPDATE - 12:15, 22 December: The BBC Trust has now made this official. It will now undergo a public consultation on the matter until 2 February 2010 and then publish its final decision in the Spring.