What's On: The Top TV Campanion Sites On the Web: The Net is a Tube's Best Friend

by Larry Lemm
Summer 1998

Facing a wave of choices in Web sites designed to accompany existing television programs, it helps to have a guide to the very best TV "companion content" sites on the Internet. Every issue, we'll bring you our hottest picks.

ESPN SportsZone
www.sportszone.com

Not only is ESPN SportsZone the most popular TV-related Web site, but it also happens to be one of the most popular Web destinations….period (besides a couple of notable search engine). ESPN's SportsZone is so deep it will leave you wondering why you still waste time reading the local sports page. Designed by former Microsoft co-owner Paul Allen's Internet all-star team Starwave Communications, SportsZone is the most comprehensive sports site in the digital universe. It has a special section for each of the major spectator sports, and also includes pages that cover sports that normally get ignored by the press, such as bowling , cycling and water polo. The heart of the site, however, is its coverage of the big-time professional and collegiate sports. You can find stacks of statistics, schedules, standings and scores scattered throughout the site. ESPN is also famous for its score trackers, which can keep you up-to-the-minute on the Los Angeles-Chicago basketball game through the Net, while you watch the Oakland-Denver football game on your television. SportsZone is also home to a subscription area, where you can further your sports-information gluttony with more articles, analysis, rumor, and statistics than can be digested without fully embracing the "sports is my life" attitude.

PBS
www.pbs.org

The PBS Web site is really many sites bundled together in one publicly-funded megasite. The PBS lineup of shows is represented here, with content for kids and adults alike. Parents can catch up on the news with the online Newshour, where you can get the news with a twist, such as essays from famous writers and RealAudio feeds taken from the TV show. The toddlers will love the sites like Shining Time Station page, where Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends reside online. The granddaddy of all quality children's programming, Sesame Street, has a section that shares the magic of the TV show with online stories featuring the popular Sesame Street characters like Elmo and Big Bird. Parents will love that PBS has posted educational activities to use alongside the TV show that will keep the kids entertained and learning.

A change of pace within the PBS site is NOVA Online. NOVA maintains an impressively dynamic Web site, changing content weekly to match the show currently airing. Like most PBS sites, the NOVA site has a special area for teachers that provides activities ideas to enrich the TV's learning potential. Next fall, PBS says it will use Intercast to embed information from these and other Web pages alongside the TV signal in the VBI (Vertical Blanking Interval) portion of the spectrum that also carries the closed-captions, providing a real convergence between TV and the Internet. When Intercasting begins, expect the PBS site to lead the crowd in providing companion content.

Discovery Online
www.discovery.com

Discovery Online is a worthy partner to the Discovery Channel's impressive educational television lineup. Splitting itself between news, history, technology, science and exploration, Discovery Online has a program that will interest almost anyone. The history section provides perspectives on the introduction of many of America's favorite things, and how they impacted American society. The history of Pong was highlighted in one essay, others featured the introduction of skateboards, Valium and the bikini.

The nature section has an ongoing, moderated newsgroup where viewers can ask the biologists on the week's TV show questions about the featured animals. One example in particular illustrates the depth and interactivity of the Web compared to the one-sided nature of TV. A viewer/surfer asked the question "Are warthogs born with fur?" The answer is "it depends." It seems that the warthogs featured during the TV show were Kenyan warthogs, which are born furry, but another biologist answering warthog questions on the site was studying Ugandan warthogs, which are born hair-free. The net result was that not only did an 11-year old girl have her question addressed by two famous field biologists, but she was also able to partake in a debate between the two about the answer. Now that's interactivity.

The popular Discovery TV show Wings provides the backbone of the technology section. Plane lovers can enter an online contest to guess airplane types from close-up pictures of their wing tips and wheel wells. If you can guess what type of plane you are looking at, you can win a free T-shirt. Particularly interesting is the dead inventors section, where long lost inventors and their inventions are detailed. TV lovers will enjoy the expose of the tube's godfather, Philo T. Farnsworth, and his battle with RCA (who tried to patent TV without paying the starry-eyed inventor, but was later forced to pay him royalties, an act that reportedly brought tears to RCA VP David Sarnoff).

Discovery Online also has a news section where the science headlines of the day are explained in more detail than the abbreviated sound-bites TV typically musters. The last, and perhaps most enjoyable section of Discovery Online is the exploration section. This is where they take one or more journalist, give them a satellite phone, a laptop and a digital camera, then send them somewhere with orders to report back daily with pictures and words. One is cycling across Egypt and Jordan and another is living with the Amish. The Amish elders must be scratching their beards as the journalist fusses about things like "network latency," "slow connections," and "digital artifacts in my picture".

The expansion of television into the wired world of the Internet is bringing forth new styles of interactive content. These newborn companion content sites are just the beginning of the integration. Soon, every television show is going to have a companion site that will be just as important to the show's ability to deliver a message as the pictures and sound that are emanating from the TV itself.