Interactive Services
By the end of 2006 half of the USA will be receiving digital television, nearly 55 million households. Whether PayTV digital satellite, free-view digital terrestrial or digital cable never before have broadcasters and media companies been able to have such a direct and interactive relationship with their TV viewers. Interactive TV often refers to the TV set but there are other emerging platforms that will provide an ‘interactive’ televisual experience such as broadband internet and 3G mobile.
The BBC in the UK, who are undoubtedly the world leaders now in interactive TV, deliver two key areas of interactivity to the set top boxes. Firstly there is ‘always-available’ (24/7) news, information and entertainment services accessed by pressing the text key on any digital platform and secondly a growing range of ‘synchronised’ with TV programme additions, colloquially known as enhanced TV – quizzes, votes, alternate video and audio etc. Other leaders in the field, such as BskyB and Channel 4, deliver similar offerings but also venture into key commercial areas such as:
* Pay-per-play gaming and gambling
* Movies-on-demand
* Interactive advertising and shopping
* Email, internet and voting
Resonant interactivity via your television screen will rely on the return path, built in to set tops or mobiles and the ability to communicate via the TV or any of a range of other devices will be commonplace and the challenge will be to provide a consistent journey for the viewer. There are many technical and business hurdles to overcome before we really switch on the big ‘return channel’. One is simply that the current networks available on Digital Satellite and Digital Cable are swamped on occasion with large numbers of viewers interacting with popular iTV programmes.
The TV’s role will change and viewers will use a range of display devices for different activities and services delivered to them. There will be mobile, personal screens (mobiles/PDA’s) alongside the lean-forward work screens (PC’s) and sit-back sofa displays (TV’s).
We are also seeing the dawn of Personal TV, where what you want is captured for you for anytime viewing, Sky+ and TiVo for example. In the very near future there will be a multitude of ways that a viewer can store and carry content around with them, from small video clips for phone and PDA to high quality archiving of BBC programmes, sitting alongside their own home movies on large disks centrally located in the home.
After all is said and done – most of the viewers – some of the time – will need simply to be passive – to sit back and be told a ’story’. The real challenge is being able to make interactive TV and other services as natural and engaging an experience as our greatest linear programming.