It’s little wonder that YouView’s CEO, Richard Halton, is smiling. After years of delayed launches, regulatory rows, changes of chairmen and negative headlines (such as SAlan Sugar should kill the YouView brandT), the venture that Halton has nurtured from its earliest days as SProject CanvasT can look ahead with confidence.

In March, against pundits’ predictions, YouView’s seven owners – the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, BT, TalkTalk and Arqiva – agreed to fund the service as equal shareholders for the next five years.

YouView has also signed up a string of new on-demand services, from Dave to STV; it’s passed more than 1 million connected homes, with 3 million video-on-demand plays a day; and won five-star reviews and consumer satisfaction plaudits for its technology and ease of use.

To cap it all, BT is to replace all its existing set-top boxes with YouView boxes.

The project that critics once claimed was over-ambitious and anti-competitive and should be put out of its misery is taking on new staff and developing new apps, as it aims for a long-term target of 10 million connected-TV UK homes.

For Halton, who has lived and breathed digital television since joining the BBC in 1999, it is a good moment.

SPeople were suggesting that the BBC would not reinvest in YouView but I’d had James Purnell [BBC Director of Strategy and Digital] in this office giving me an absolute assurance – and the deal is for five years, which is longer than most people expected.T

Even so, critics claim that YouView is turning into something it wasn’t meant to be – a gateway for BT and TalkTalk to launch pay-services – rather than the next generation of Freeview, taking free-to-air broadcasting into the internet TV world.

They point out that most of its growth comes from boxes supplied free or at low rental by BT and TalkTalk (rather than bought by viewers) and that this is where most of YouView’s investment is coming from.

Halton argues that the service hasn’t changed its role. SYouView was set up to future-proof the major broadcasters and to provide a path into internet TV for Freeview.

SEach of the broadcasters wants it for different reasons – ITV to smooth the way for targeted advertising, Channel 4 for richer customer data – but they all want there to be a single platform of scale for free-to-air broadcasting, to compete with Sky and Virgin.

SAnd TalkTalk is seeing a huge increase in customer satisfaction from YouView.T

SIt’s about broadcasters controlling their own destiny, allowing them to continue to invest in great new contentT

Even so, people still find it hard to sum up what YouView does.

It describes itself as San on-demand TV service with more than 70 live, free-to-air digital TV and radio channelsT that Sseamlessly combines seven-day catch-up on BBC iPlayer, ITV Player, 4oD and Demand 5 with a library of on-demand television programmes, film and radioT.

Halton accepts that choosing a TV provider has become too complicated. He says YouView is working on how to simplify its message, in conversation with BT and TalkTalk.

It wouldn’t be his first such callenge.

On leaving the University of Warwick, Halton joined Andersen Consulting (later Accenture) and then moved to the BBC to work on the launches of BBC Three and BBC Four with Stuart Murphy and Roly Keating, respectively.  

SRoly and I sat in his kitchen thinking up ways to describe BBC Four – we pointed out the parallels with Tate Modern, which was starting at about the same time,T he recalls.

SI was also on Lorraine Heggessey’s BBC One team, trying to ensure the channels linked together as a family. Helping to develop commissioning strategy was a great way to start in television.T

As Controller of TV Strategy, and later responsible for the BBC’s corporate strategy, Halton dealt with all the key players inside and outside the corporation.

SI brokered the relationship between the BBC, ITV and BT, when we were first developing Project Canvas to see how Freeview could be upgraded to be received online,T he says. That was no mean feat, say those familiar with the situation.

The partnership between the BBC, ITV and BT was announced in December 2008. TalkTalk joined the Project Canvas consortium shortly afterwards, then Channel 4, Arqiva and, eventually, Channel 5.

The YouView brand was launched in September 2010. But it still took until July 2012 to launch YouView boxes to the public.

It seemed the project was being overtaken by a stream of competitors’ systems, including smart TVs with ever-more-sophisticated software.

Why did it take so long? 

SThe regulatory issues took 23 months to solve, instead of the nine months that we’d expected,T says Halton. SSky and Virgin naturally had concerns and the TV-set manufacturers had issues with it, too. 

SFortunately, when it was referred to the Office of Fair Trading they saw the benefits very quickly.T

One frequently heard criticism was that this was a grandiose, over-prescriptive BBC project, designed to extend the grip of the established UK broadcasters into the YouTube era.

SYouView is part of that future,T he concludes. SIt’s living proof of convergence.T

Better to Slet 1,000 flowers bloomT, said YouView’s critics, and allow a free flow of creative ideas from producers and technology companies to find their place in the market.

Halton counters that the problem with this analogy was that the S1,000 flowersT were dwarfed by massive trees with huge girths, such as Sky, Virgin, Google/YouTube and Apple, which would have dominated the marketplace – and still could.

SIsn’t it better to have a consortium of the major British broadcasters and broadband companies?T he asks. SBT and TalkTalk compete strongly in broadband with Sky and Virgin, and there are three strong TV platforms – Sky, Virgin and Freeview/YouView.

SIt’s about broadcasters controlling their own destiny, allowing them to continue to invest in great new content.T

Halton believes that mainstream television still requires a structure to produce high-quality content and to allow viewers to find it easily.

SWe believe that linear channels are still hugely important,T he says. SThat TV schedule grid – with the BBC News at Six, and The One Show and Channel 4 News at 7:00pm, and the Saturday night entertainment shows – is a very easy way of finding content.

SWe’re not saying, like Google, ‘forget TV channels, watch what you like when you like’, or Netflix, that the future is all about streaming. That still has a very small share of viewing in this country.T

Having said that, Halton believes YouView has much in common with those companies.

He calls it a Sbrilliant, young technology companyT, developing software for a range of devices, including an upgraded BBC Sred buttonT and apps to allow smaller companies – such as the National Theatre – on to YouView.

With its funding secure for five years, it has just become an RTS Major Patron and is taking on new staff.

SI feel we need to be part of the RTS conversation,T he says. SWe must attract the best skills and talents into this industry. YouView has 135 staff – average age under 30 – and 95 are technologists or in related disciplines.

SWe’re launching an intern scheme, with 12 places, because we need the talent.T

Halton says coding and software are now vital TV skills – alongside those of programme-making, script-writing and audience research – and that makes television a much bigger industry than it was.

SWe’re growing an eco-system of TV app developers to make viewing more personal. 

SAnd, because of Sky’s development record and the BBC iPlayer, the UK is seen as a leader, not just in content but in the ‘context’ of TV.

SYouView is part of that future,T he concludes. SIt’s living proof of convergence.T

@TorinDouglas and @BPGPRESSGuild