Interactive TV: A Survey of Interactive TV

by Jim Mikles
Summer/Fall 2003

Subtly, but with increasing frequency, mainstream and alternative programs across the spectrum of broadcast and cable networks are adding interactive elements to their television programming. Interactive viewing, which allows you to engage with a program as an active couch potato, is clearly gaining in popularity. There are a variety of ways in which this can occur and different networks are conducting some lively experiments to see what the viewers will react to most favorably.

Enhanced TV
The simultaneous live-Internet content provided the first interactive features and proved that viewers do indeed want to participate in television. This isn't a new concept and program fan sites, chat rooms and online game sites are as old as the Web itself. What is relatively new, however, is the real-time, on-air inclusion of the Internet experience. Popular programs with millions of viewers like Survivor, CSI and Monday Night Football have tried or are currently offering interactive or enhanced viewing options, clearly illustrating that interactive TV is going mainstream.

Just this last season, for example, ESPN and ABC began to offer instant online polling of officials' calls being challenged by the coaches on the field. As viewers, we were able to see the exact replays the officials viewed and vote whether the call should stand or not. This didn't influence the game or lend any accurate forecast about what the final decision would be, but it was fun to watch. Tens of thousands of people responded to every poll.

Examples of ABC's enhanced viewing include programs such as Sunday Night Football, Monday Night Football, Sunday Night Baseball, The American Music Awards and Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Schedules of upcoming enhanced ABC viewing programs and an email sign up list are available at www.etv.go.com.

Other ways to interact with TV programs online involve entangling the viewing experience further into the Web. Trivia and puzzle game shows, such as Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune lend themselves naturally to this interactivity. Sites that allow viewers to interact with story lines and characters are equally popular, such as the CBS series CSI. Reality TV programs like Survivor also cultivate a loyal Web-based following and their Web sites have multiple ways fans can interact with the program participants and with each other. But enhanced TV is just a taste of what's on the very near horizon.

Interactive TV
Another form of interactivity already exists on most cable and satellite boxes in America in the form of on-screen program guides and pay-per-view movie options. Viewers use their remotes to navigate menus and make choices. Another common example of existing interactive TV is the multiple-language option (such as SAP) offered through many satellite and cable providers.

The next generation of interactive TV, otherwise known as iTV, includes more robust and responsive interactive content. This content often overlays the screen, sort of like the sports or stock tickers that we commonly see on existing programs. The difference is that this content has buttons that allow the viewer to select various additional options and respond to questions. For example, additional camera angle options might be available for sporting events or concerts. There will also be plenty of polling, such as we see now with Enhanced TV and trivia game shows.

The driving force behind iTV development is, of course, revenue. Marketing and advertising types see immense potential in viewers being able to instantly respond to a favorable message. Want to get more information on a product or find a local distributor? Just click a button on your remote.

The power of this type of interactive content comes from the fact that it is actually included as part of the broadcast and takes little or no additional effort on the part of the viewer to participate.

The technology is already available in limited test markets and there have been plenty of surveys that show clear viewer demand. Survivor: Africa for example, included an interactive screen that allowed viewers to participate in the voting or find additional information on the contestants. A famous test case by Dominos Pizza involved the pizza company selling thousands of pies through the TV following the broadcast of a single pizza ad.

Satellite providers have been at the forefront of content improvisation. With TiVo and Ultimate TV-enabled boxes now widely available, it requires nominal extra effort to include technology to enable additional iTV features.

Cable providers are a little further behind. Because iTV requires hardware and software installed in the living room, it is a little more technologically involved than merely requiring viewers to have a concurrent Internet connection. It will be easier for viewers to use, however, once they have the right TV, set-top box and remote. Because so many diverse parties must come together on a technology standard before the technology will be deployable on a mass scale, it could be awhile longer before iTV is ubiquitous on cable. But make no mistake: It is coming. Educated estimates place mass rollout in late 2003 or early 2004 in certain markets.

Broadcast Interactivity
Even traditional broadcasters have the technology to play in the "embedded content" arena as well. For many years, additional content has been included in part of the signal (which is called the VBI, or vertical blanking interval). This capability provided such features as closed captioning. With the implementation of digital TV standards, broadcasters can use essentially the same signal encoding technology as their satellite brethren.

One experiment by WGBH Boston and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting involved creating an entire educational interactive series around the popular PBS kids show Arthur. The interactive content included American Sign Language captioning, a Spanish language track, a plot customization game, as well as quizes and puzzle games.

Again, viewers will have to wait for both technology standards and mass deployment before this type of content is widely available, but it's a good example of the type of interactive content we are likely to see on our televisions in the very near future.

Editor's note: a listing of enhanced and interactive television programs is available at the Smart TV & Sound Web site. Click "ClubSmart," then "Interactive TV."

[Sidebar: Definitions]
Enhanced programs deliver additional information to viewers using ATVEF-compliant, Wink-enabled or OpenTV-enabled tuners. These tuners are found in some cable boxes, satellite tuners and WebTV-type set-top boxes. The additional information appears as an overlay or sidebar on the TV screen itself.

Interactive programs, like enhanced programs, deliver additional information to viewers, but they also record the responses made by the viewers to that information. A viewer could use an interactive commercial, for example, to order a pizza. An interactive game show could tally viewer scores and award them prizes. An interactive drama could use viewer input to determine the outcome of a story.

[Sidebar: Interactive Satellite]
by Stephen Muratore
Both DBS providers, DirecTV and Dish Network, now provide some enhanced and interactive television programs. These are available to users of certain models of receivers made for their respective systems. Check their Web sites www.directv.com/DTVAPP/imagine/DTVInteractive.jsp and http://www.dishnetwork.com/content/products/receivers/ for current listings of the receivers that support interactivity.

DirecTV
DirecTV's DIRECTV INTERACTIVE services include up-to-the-minute news, sports and weather information channels, powered by Wink Communications.

Additionally, DirecTV supports about twenty channels that broadcast enhanced TV programs at least some of the time, including ESPN, NBCi, Discovery Channel, TNT and TBS. Whenever additional information is available, an "i" symbol appears on the screen. The user then presses a button on the remote to display this information on the screen as an overlay or sidebar to the main picture.

Finally, DIRECTV INTERACTIVE offers a few truly interactive (two-way communication) channels. These offer the user the ability to order products such as music CDs and books via remote control.

Dish Network
According to Director of Interactive Programming Scott Higgins, Dish Networks is deploying interactive technology to deliver three types of benefits to its customers: the ability to localize content (e.g. local weather and lottery), personalized content (e.g. horoscope or topical preferences) and receive certain kinds of content on demand products (e.g. games). Dish lists its interactive services, powered by OpenTV, through the Dish Home page, available on channel 100. Here are some other services: