Arqiva owned UK broadband internet TV and VOD website, SeeSaw, has signed a major new licensing agreement with NBC Universal for several years that will bring popular US shows such as “Heroes”, “House”, “Battlestar Galactica”, “The Office” and “30 Rock” to the service. SeeSaw’s existing partners include the BBC, Channel 4, Channel FIVE, MTV and Disney.

SeeSaw currently offers arround 3500 hours of free archive and catch up programming and over 1500 hours of rental content, and will offer episodes of the new TV shows to broadband ISP visitors from 99p, and a full series is expected to cost anything from £3.99 to £17.99.

SeeSaw’s service itself is based off technology that was bought from the now dead Project Kangaroo, which was originally the joint IPTV service venture between the BBC, ITV and Channel 4.

However Project Kangaroo ended up being scrapped after the Competition Commission ruled it to be uncompetitive. And Now we have Project Canvas filling the gap.

Most Annoyingly though is that customers will not be able to save any episodes, only able to use rental style access for up to 30 days for episodes and a series for up to 90 days. That could make it very expensive, especially as some of the shows like “Battlestar Galactica” have now ended and are fairly cheap to buy on DVD. Also each episode must be watched within 48 hours of starting it.

Customers hoping to view the content will need to make sure that their website browser supports Adobe Flash Player 10 and that their internet connection can sustain a minimum broadband ISP speed of 1Mbps.

SeeSaw is partly funded by forcing us to watch an un-stoppable 1 minute ad both before and during about halfway through each show, which would be ok, if the shows were any good.

Related posts:

1. SeeSaw Offer Rental Online TV Service
2. MSN TV on Demand Service Adds 700 Hours More Online Content
3. New TV Website SeeSaw Starts Trials
4. SeeSaw Getting Serious With A Massive Advertising Campaign
5. Seesaw Launches Free But Is Looking Into Pay Options