The CC has also outlined exactly what areas it will investigate. Crucial to the investigation will be how the CC actually defines the market for the joint venture's service and how it calculates the harm the venture may cause.
Project Kangaroo is a joint venture between the BBC's commercial arm, BBC Worldwide, Channel 4 and ITV. It is a proposed one-stop-shop for video on demand (VoD) content.
But because the proposed project involves the UK's four biggest broadcasters, and four of its five analogue terrestrial broadcasters, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) referred it for investigation by the CC.
That investigation will now extend into January 2009 because of a delay in the provision of information by the broadcasters, the CC said.
The CC said that it had to extend the timetable "whilst it awaits important information on details of the joint venture, which are still being negotiated by the parties," according to a statement. "Whilst the CC will continue with the inquiry, the information required is central to assessing the CC's statutory questions, including the competitive effects of the joint venture."
Project Kangaroo would be a single point of access for viewers to watch BBC, ITV and Channel 4 content on the internet. It would allow the watching of video on demand of recent and archive programmes.
"The CC has been asked to decide whether the joint venture may be expected to result in a substantial lessening of competition within any market or markets in the UK for goods or services including the syndication of content rights for video on demand services in the UK," the CC said.
The CC has published the issues statement which defines the scope of its inquiry. Crucial to the final result of that investigation will be its definition of the market for video on demand services.
It said that it would have to decide whether the market should be defined by the means of access to material, the receiving device, the type of content, the channel of origin, the business model of the service or by a combination of all of those.
The CC said that when deciding whether or not the proposed project is fair to the competition it will weigh up what would have happened if it had never existed. "In particular, we will consider whether, in the absence of this JV, each party would have been likely to have provided an independent VoD service and, if so, what form such a service might have taken," said its issues statement.
In weighing up what harm the proposed project could cause the CC said that it would have to consider whether or not it would cause the loss of competition in the supply of video on demand material at the wholesale level, the retail level or both.
"The JV may give the parties the ability and incentive to offer worse terms for VoD content rights or cease to supply them altogether to one or more rival retailers, resulting in viewers paying higher prices and/or receiving lower quality or less innovative offerings than would otherwise be the case," said the statement.
The CC said that it would also consider the effects the joint venture might have on other broadcasters, content producers, device manufacturers and on other business relationships between the joint venture partners.
It said, though, that it would balance any negative effects of the proposal with likely positive effects.
"In any consideration of possible remedies, we will consider whether any relevant customer benefits may be expected to arise as a result of the JV, the nature of any such benefits and those customers most likely to receive those benefits. Customer benefits may occur at any point in the supply chain and are not limited to benefits to final consumers," it said.
