Seesaw, the troubled online TV portal, has finally ceased operations after its new owners failed to come up with the promised funding. A notice on the company website posted Friday simply read “Thanks for your support but SeeSaw is no longer available”.
“Having completed the sale of SeeSaw in July, Arqiva is very disappointed by the failure of the new investors to provide their committed funding. Without that funding the service had to close,” Arqiva said in a statement.
SeeSaw’s troubles began when then owner Arqiva launched a strategic review of its operations, which led to a decision to wind down the portal by June 20, 2011.
However, Seesaw was thrown a lifeline in July when SeeSaw was sold to a consortium of investors led by Criterion Capital Partners, the new owner of Bebo, with Arqiva retaining a 25% holding.
Criterion then lost the services of former BBC and Channel 4 executive Michael Jackson, who was to have been Seesaw’s new chairman, and failed to renegotiate a contract for Channel 4 content.
SeeSaw paid an estimated £8 million (€9.56 million) for the technology developed by Project Kangaroo that was broken up after the intervention of the Competition Commission broke up the BBC-ITV-Channel 4 venture.
It launched in February 2010 with content from BBC Worldwide, Channel 4, Five, Shed Media and TalkbackThames.
