As consumers of media content increasingly move online, broadcasting and production companies continue to face challenges to adapt to the digital landscape and monetising those consumers. According to a recent study released by the IBM Institute for Business Value, an increasingly broad demographic is driving the growth of internet usage and watching traditionally linear content on new media platforms.

Field Fisher Waterhouse partner David Naylor, who is currently working on several international multiplatform video on demand (VOD) projects, comments: "We are seeing a huge amount of activity in internet and multimedia TV, as traditional media companies take their properties online and open them up to a new generation of viewers. For most of this generation, traditional, linear programming is a thing of the past – they want to watch what they want, when they want – and increasingly, they want to interact with it and other viewers. This is causing a huge shift in the industry."

In-house lawyers at broadcasting companies are seeing an increasing amount of work relating to the development of online platforms such as the iPlayer, 4oD and Demand Five. Diane Hamer, a trademark lawyer in the BBC's litigation and intellectual property department, was involved in clearing and registering the iPlayer brand. "The creation of the iPlayer was very much on par with the BBC's other projects," she says. "We wanted the application to be user-friendly and to appeal to a wide range of people."

In order to keep up with the success of the BBC catch-up service and the introduction of Sky's on demand service, ITV launched its own counterpart in 2008. "As in-house lawyers, we contribute to thought processes that are behind these innovations," says Paul Lewis, director of central legal at ITV. "Legal advice is integral to a broadcaster's strategy in terms of digital convergence."

iPlayer, 4oD, Demand Five and ITV Player have proven successful, but some criticise the fact that they are PC-based systems. "The problem with watching the current crop of services on a TV is the bit rate is generally pretty low, so they don't scale well to HDTV screen sizes," says Hamer. "The solution is an internet protocol TV (IPTV) offering that delivers archive and catch-up TV via the internet to a set-top box – this is what Project Canvas is trying to make possible."

Project Canvas is a proposed partnership between the BBC, ITV, C4, Five, BT and Talk Talk to build an open internet-connected TV platform. The partners intend to form a venture to promote the platform to consumers and the content, service and developer community. Canvas is not significantly related to the defunct Project Kangaroo, which was an attempt to create a unified online catch-up system. "The Kangaroo platform was initially expected to launch in 2008, but was blocked by the Competition Commission in 2009. Following the Commission's rejection of the bid, the technology platform was put up for sale," says Field Fisher's Naylor.

Although the bulk of the power and influence still remains with the broadcasters, London's independent production sector continues to deal with the emergence of so-called 'super indies', larger production companies who have substantial commissions for a long-running strand or series. After unprecedented MA& activity in the sector, the independent production landscape is dominated by a handful of companies such as Endemol, All3Media and Talkback Thames.

"We have a big catalogue of programming and are therefore able to negotiate VOD deals with the broadcaster VOD platforms," says Talkback Thames commercial director Rupert Brankin Frisby, who spent seven years as head of legal and business affairs at the company. "In terms of trends, digital distribution, ie VOD and DTO (download-to-own), is one of our main growth areas," he says. "Another important development is the set-up of Talkback Thames Digital which is focused on digital production, both online extensions of our TV programming and bespoke digital projects."