Industry News

Archives

- April 2006
- February 2006
- December 2005
- June 2005
- May 2005
- April 2005
- March 2005
- February 2005
- January 2005
- December 2004
- November 2004
- October 2004
- September 2004
- August 2004
- July 2004
- June 2004
- May 2004
- April 2004
- March 2004
- February 2004
- January 2004
- December 2003
- November 2003
- October 2003
- September 2003
- August 2003
- July 2003
- June 2003
- May 2003
- April 2003
- March 2003
- February 2003
- January 2003
- December 2002
- November 2002
- October 2002
- September 2002
- August 2002
- July 2002
- June 2002
- May 2002
- April 2002
- March 2002
- February 2002
- January 2002
- December 2001
- November 2001
- October 2001
- September 2001
- August 2001
- July 2001
- June 2001
- May 2001
- April 2001
- March 2001
- February 2001
- January 2001
- December 2000
- November 2000
- October 2000
- September 2000
- August 2000
- July 2000
- June 2000
- May 2000
- April 2000
- March 2000
- December 1999
- November 1999
- October 1999
- August 1999
- June 1999
- May 1999
- April 1999
- March 1999
- February 1999
- January 1999
- October 1998

Interactive Focus Narrows as Consumer Options Expands

Wednesday, May 12th, 1999

As program providers scramble to reinforce or make deals with broadcasters and cable operators, the focus of interactive programming is moving to Supplemental data from Interneet feeds.

But as the programming gets increasingly narrow, the choices for consumers is growing, creating the risk of a fragmented, confused market.

“Some alliances are more politically motivated than technically motivated,” said Mitchell Berman, senior operations and marketing vice president at OpenTV, which made an agreement with EchoStar to provide interactive programming for its Digital Sky Highway system in the Fall.

Some of the confusion comes from the different difinitions of complelling content, industry sources said. Some programming providers put supplementary data on commercials and TV programs, other providers like WebTV are Internet based. WebTV plans to enter the online videogaming market in the Fall.