YouView finally gets an airing but is it too late? First up, there were run-ins with both BSkyB and the hardware industry over how much control the BBC would exert over the project. Then there was a revolving door at the top. Kip Meek, a former director at the regulator Ofcom, was briefly installed as chairman, with Anthony Rose, the Silicon Valley technology guru who made the iPlayer a success, as YouView's technology chief. However, they were both shown the exit amid frustrations that the £115m project was taking too long to get going. Lord Sugar took over as chairman last March and quickly put the launch date back even further. Originally scheduled for late 2010, it was pushed back to summer 2011, then "spring 2012." Spring came and went. It is in beta-trials with 2,200 users but will not be fully up and running until the fourth quarter of this year. Concerns are growing that YouView may have missed the boat - that an innovation that at one point felt game-changing is now launching into a very different competitive landscape. None the less, YouView's joint venture partners are chomping at the bit to prove that there really is value to the project and will today demonstrate the service to the public. The service, seen by The Daily Telegraph, will offer access to around 300 channels via a contents menu that allows users to scroll backwards as well as forwards in time, allowing them to watch shows for up to a week after they first aired. It will also allow users to record shows and will recommend programmes based on past viewing habits. The set-top boxes will be sold for £299, but some of the joint venture partners, namely BT and TalkTalk, are expected to offer them at massive discounts to customers who sign up for their television services They will also bundle in extra content. BT will offer its newly acquired Premier League coverage, while TalkTalk has struck a deal with Amazon's movie rental service, LoveFilm. In doing so, both companies will be able to step up competition with BSkyB and Virgin Media, and combat the flow of customers leaving in order to sign-up for their bundled broadband, telephone and television services. YouView will also change the landscape for content producers, by allowing movie studios and television production companies effectively to set themselves up as broadcasters and run their own channels. "There are some doubts about how robust the technology is and, let's be honest, a lot of these technology projects fail," says Alex de Groote, an analyst at Panmure Gordon. But if it even has half the success that Freeview had it will have a major impact on the whole television market.