Broadcast & Mobile: Multi-Tasking Media
Convergence becomes reality with iTV
Convergence, the techno buzzword of the 1990s, is rapidly leading us down a path that could eventually find us viewing our favorite TV shows while simultaneously surfing the web, all on the same screen. That’s not to say that you should throw your PC away just yet, but during the next few years it is quite possible that the Internet will become just another channel on your TV set.
Those with broadband Internet access already enjoy access to streaming media on their home computer, of course. But the flipside of that, if you will, is the merging of broadcast and Internet technologies into a single entity in the corner of the living room, in the form of interactive television or iTV. The combination of entertainment and information on a single screen in the family room is sure to be a winner. That is what the companies behind iTV are hoping anyway.
FEED ME
As a concept, interactive television, also known as enhanced TV, has been around since at least the early 1990s, when the prospect of limitless high-quality digital channels and the ability to order pizza using just a remote control had not only pizza-lovers salivating, but also the telecommunication giants that stood to profit most.
The rapid spread of broadband web access pushed iTV to the back burner. Quietly however, over the last few years, interactive television has begun to emerge and fulfill its early promise, especially in Europe.
With the aid of a set-top box, a remote control device and a return path (already available with digital satellite or digital cable, in Europe, at least) for digital terrestrial TV should be available later this year.
iTV users can interact with programming, participating in game shows for example, or communicating with show hosts, contestants or other viewers via e-mail. The potential for pizza has not gone unrealized; in the U.K., Dominos reportedly accounts for 2 percent of its sales through iTV.
Interactivity in sports, news or weather programming offers viewers the opportunity to call up additional information onto their screens, clicking through on-screen icons and menus with the remote control to reveal text boxes or picture-in-picture displays.
An icon might pop up during a food program to indicate that a recipe is available for on-screen viewing, for example, or the results from the day’s sporting events can be called up without missing a single play of the current game being aired.
Let’s not forget the business opportunities inherent in iTV, especially for advertisers. Future set-top box software will undoubtedly provide advertisers with the necessary information to tout their wares to specific market segments of the viewing population, based on previously gleaned or entered data. This suggests that there will be some privacy issues to be considered presently.
INTERACTIVE EQUALS IMMEDIATE
Meanwhile, it’s already possible to follow the icons or banners on-screen during commercial breaks to order products online. In a widely reported recent example, Volvo saw considerable success with a European campaign that allowed iTV viewers to arrange a test drive in response to a commercial, a logical extension of the company’s forward-thinking online marketing efforts.
According to Forrester Research, the revenue generated by t-commerce (industry jargon for the next generation of e-commerce, namely shopping via iTV) will reach $28 billion in Europe by 2005, which is approximately sixteen percent of all online retail sales there. Over twenty million households already enjoy iTV via satellite services in Europe, and the growth of digital TV (satellite, cable and terrestrial) is expected to top sixty million homes by 2005.
In the U.S. the roll-out of iTV has been somewhat slower, with one research group predicting twenty million users by 2005, and another suggesting that the technology will have reached twenty-five percent of households and be generating over US$15 billion in revenue within the next three years.
Providers such as Microsoft’s WebTV, DirecTV, Adelphia, AT+T, Cox, Charter, Comcast and Time Warner Cable have all started to offer enhanced, interactive functionality to select areas of the U.S. through a variety of software technologies, including Wink and RespondTV. Wink-based interactivity gives viewers free access to enhanced program-related information, or the ability to request coupons, product samples or make purchases, all at the click of a remote control button.
Although slow to jump on the iTV bandwagon, U.S. broadcasters have not had to wait for the transition to digital to provide program enhancements. Instead, they have relied on current technology to offer two-screen interactivity; when an icon pops up viewers can go to the indicated website on their home computer to view those enhancements.
ALMOST THERE
Of the approximately 100 million TV households in the nation, fifty percent have access to the web and sixty percent of those watch TV and surf the ‘net simultaneously. Both NBC and ABC were quick to see the potential of those figures, with NBC reputedly airing the first network enhanced broadcast in 1996, presenting over 100 hours of interactive programming to accompany the televised Olympic Games.
ABC makes a special interactive version of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” available on its website during broadcasts, duplicating the aired questions and allowing viewers to compete online for prizes. During advertising breaks web participants are encouraged to continue to answer questions relating to the commercials.
The message being put about by some industry pundits is that television is dead; long live iTV.
A report published at the beginning of this year by research and market analysis firm, Datamonitor, posited that the concept of “the channel” would soon be dead. After fifty years of broadcast TV the passive viewing experience will soon change forever and the personalized on-demand services afforded by iTV technology will irrevocably alter the TV environment.
As channels have increased so has the need for electronic program guides (EPGs) to maximize viewers’ enjoyment of the content. Industry observers suspect that EPGs will evolve into personalized search engines, taking the emphasis away from the channel and putting it onto the program.
In fact, one fly in the ointment for those involved may be the emerging on-demand technologies such as ReplayTV and TiVo, which utilize a new breed of digital set-top box to search for and record selected programs, and allow users to rewind, pause and fast forward just like a VCR.
The personal video recorder (PVR) puts control of programming into the hands of consumers. This means viewers can skip commercials, and such viewer discretion could pull the rug from under those who are staking their financial future on iTV commerce.
ONLY A MATTER OF TIME
Finally, here’s one piece of hardware that no avid TV viewer should be without. In an announcement made in January of this year (not, amazingly enough, April 1) La-Z-Boy, the couch potato’s top pick in home furnishings, and WebTV Networks, introduced the Microsoft® WebTV® Plus Recliner by La-Z-Boy®, also known as the “Explorer.” The “e-cliner™” features an airline-style tray table that folds out of the left arm and a Sony WebTV battery-powered infrared keyboard.
But wait, there’s more. The “Explorer” also houses a 120-volt fused electrical outlet with surge protection, a high-speed DSL port and regular analog line, and an AC adapter for a laptop computer. The right arm contains a drink holder and storage space, described as ideal for holding a remote control and TV Guide.
Now that’s user-friendly technology!
Steve Harvey lives in Southern California and is LIVE SOUND!’s audio convergence specialist. He can be reached via e-mail at harvey@pacbell.net
July/August 2001 Live Sound International