It’s looking increasingly as if the BBC’s broadband-to-TV Project Canvas might never actually see the light of day. Analysts are speculating that the initiative is dead, and Freeview and Freesat both adding the BBC iPlayer, we wonder if Project Canvas might be moot. For more on this story, see Adrian Pennington’s article on StreamingMediaGlobal.com

Like most studios and media & entertainment companies, Disney is embracing the opportunities and rising to the challenges of getting its content to multiple screens and devices—PC, TV, set-top boxes, game consoles, and mobiles. Leading the charge for Disney is Myles MacBean, VP and general manager for Disney Online Europe Middle-East Africa, and he’ll be speaking on the topic next month in his keynote at Streaming Media Europe.

I had a chance to sit down with Myles for a video call using the ooVoo service, which offers free two-way video chat and premium options that allow for chats among up to six people. Myles and I talked about a wide range of topics, including:

• The impact that Disney’s focus on youth audiences has on its multiple-screen strategy
• The necessity of taking a holistic approach to the creation and delivery of multiple-screen content, and keeping multiple screens in mind from the beginning of the content creation process

Apologies for the slightly out-of-sync audio.

Counting down the last couple of weeks here to Streaming Media Europe, and two of our keynote speakers took some time to chat with me about the state of the industry. Some great insights here as Dr. William Cooper, founder and chief executive of informitv, and Nicholas Wheeler, Managing Director of ITN On each talk about what to look for in the next 12 months, what barriers stand in the way of continued online video growth, and what has most surprised them in the space in the last year. (Thanks to ooVoo, we were able to record these transatlantic video chats.)

We’ve just announced the full programme for this year’s Streaming Media Europe, to be held at the Novotel London West in Hammersmith, 14-16 October. You can check out the entire programme here, but here are some highlights:

• Keynotes from Myles MacBean, VP & General Manager, Disney Online EMEA; Nicholas Wheeler, Managing Director, ITN On; Dr. William Cooper, CEO, informitv; and Guy Phillipson, CEO of the Internet Advertising Bureau UK. Watch this blog in coming weeks for video interviews with our keynotes.

• Pre-conference workshops on the topics Live Broadcasting for Silverlight and Windows Media Player, Encoding H.264  for Streaming and Progressive Download, Developing a Rich Video Player for the Adobe Flash Platform, and Planning, Building, and Launching a Video Blog.

• Two full days of conference sessions, which will feature speakers from the BBC, Sony, Microsoft, Cisco, Global-MIX, Deutsche Telekom, Level 3, Teliasonera, Akamai, Telemak, Livestation, RealNetworks, Adobe, Tremor Media, Adap.tv, Red Bee Media, Thomson Reuters and more.

Early registration discounts apply until 25 September.

Canadian-based Arqiva, which is the UK’s largest broadcast transmission provider, has purchased the technology assets behind Kangaroo, the BBC/ITV/Channel 4 initiative that was derailed by regulators. See this article on StreamingMediaGlobal.com for more information.

Microsoft officially launches at an event in San Francisco on Friday. But why wait until then to find out the latest and greatest? Ben Waggoner, Microsoft’s principal video strategist for Silverlight, sat down with our Troy Dreier to talk about some of the leading features—including out-of-browser playback—in the new Silverlight 3. Check it out here.

Voting opens today for the inaugural Streaming Media European Readers’ Choice Awards, the only awards program in the online media industry that lets end users have their say about which products and services are their favourites.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve received a deluge of nominations, and from that list we’ve narrowed it down to a total of more than 125 nominees in 12 categories:

• Transcoding Solution—Hardware, software, or cloud-based solution for encoding and transcoding content

• Online Video Platform—SaaS platforms that enable customizable publication, syndication, distribution, and monetisation of video on the web

• UGC Platform—User-generated content sites and services

• TV over IP Solution—Set-top box, over-the-top, and “catch-up” solutions for delivering television content online

• Reporting, Analytics—Services that offer metrics that, among other things, help content publishers better understand who’s watching, when they’re watching, where they’re watching, and for how long

• Streaming Services Provider—Provider of end-to-end streaming services, from capture and encoding to delivery and distribution

• Video Advert Platform—Technologies and services that allow for targeted ad insertion into online video content

• Webcast Platform—Hardware, software, and SaaS solutions for delivering live web events

• Delivery Network—Edge or peer-to-peer content delivery providers

• Music & Audio Delivery Solution—Music download services, internet radio, and music sharing

• Best Live Webcast of 2009—Most impressive and successful live web event

• Best Streaming Innovation of 2009—The “catch-all” category, for simply the coolest, most innovative streaming product, service, or event of the year.

Click here to see the nominees in each category and register to vote. Don’t see your favourite listed? Please contact with the company name, product name, and address, as well as a brief explanation of why you feel it deserves a place among the nominees.

You will be able to vote for one nominee in each category, with the voting open until 21 August. We’ll publish the finalists—the top 3 vote-getters in each category—on 7 September, and then announce the winner in each category at Streaming Media Europe on 15 October, as well as on the website and in the Winter European edition of Streaming Media magazine.

The first Open Video Conference—put on by Kaltura, Yale Internet Society Project, and Participatory Culture Foundation in partership with Mozilla, Red Hat, Creative Commons, Level 3, and Akamai—is going on now and through the weekend in New York. Some great speakers and, in addition to addressing technology and business models, some great insights on the social, cultural, and political implications of video and social media.

Check out the video here.

Today the Broadband Forum announced its latest broadband and IPTV statistics, with data prepared by Point Topic. No real surprises—global broadband grew by 16.6 million subscribers in 1Q 2009, while IPTV subscription worldwide is now nearing 24 million, with most of the growth in Eastern Europe and North America. The IPTV growth in Eastern Europe is down to significant pushes in Poland, Czech Republic, Slovenia, and Russia. Clearly, while OTT video is giving IPTV a run for its money, it’s still a very competitive space

Here’s the data:

Regional broadband growth chart

Top 10 broadband countries

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According to this Reuters story, German public broadcaster ZDF will “drastically reduce” online programming because commercial television channels and newspapers are accusing them of “unfair competition.” The twisted logic being that, since public broadcasters don’t have to worry about cannibalizing profits by putting television content online, they can, um, put more television content online.

ZDF director Markus Schachter told Reuters that the broadcaster will cut back its online programming by a whopping 70%, and reduce the time that catch-up programming is streamed  on both the ZDF site and sister channel ARD site. Video reports on Bundesliga games, for instance, will only be available for one day. The sites also plan to cut back on their text offerings.

In the same story, though, Schachter says the sites will increase their video offerings, but didn’t say how they’d do that while at the same time reducing catch-up programming. Should be interesting to watch; what’s going to be even more interesting will be whether or not ZDF/ARD’s moves make any difference in Germany’s dwindling newspaper revenues.