Tvnewsweb's collapse is being blamed on slow broadband connection subscriptions. The British online venture selling near fresh news from a variety of sources went belly up last week despite nearly USD20m in venture capital.

The company was launched the same month as Netribution only a year and a half ago by ex cameraman Peter Henderson and Ken Heron, a onetime senior editor at the old Worldwide Television News agency.

In an exclusive interview with the Guardian newspaper at the end of the week, the owners of the news service that sold content from freelancers, local TV stations and the BBC to TV stations blamed the slow emergence of Broadband as a limiting factor on growth.

TVnewsweb managing director Bill Hood told the paper, "I think the investors could see it [broadband delivery] coming, but maybe it wasn't coming quickly enough."