Overview

Paul J. Traudt, Ph.D.*

* Associate Professor of Media Studies, Hank Greenspun School of Communication, University of Nevada, Las Vegas (Las Vegas, Nevada).

A profitable model for matching video with viewers actively engaging with content has long been the goal of interactive television (ITV or iTV). However, achieving the one true killer application continues to be elusive in the murky world of ITV. The 2001 National Association of Television Programming Executives (NATPE) convention was noteworthy for vendors touting the interactive features of their hardware, middleware, application platforms, and user-level applications. The same organization s subsequent 2002 convention was equally noteworthy for ITV s low profile . generally relegated to after-production game enhancements for shows such as Real World and Survivor. Historically, ITV is the wrecking ground for over one billion dollars in capital investments. Major players are still searching for viable revenue streams and ways to offset generally lukewarm consumer reception (Talwani, 2002; Human bandwidth, 2001).

Perhaps the largest impediment to successful ITV development is viewer inertia. For more than 50 years, television viewing has always been one-way analog communication. Traditional television audiences are habitually passive viewers for the simple reason that one-way technologies inhibit any real form of interactive communication. A successful ITV platform must be so compelling so as to overcome viewer inertia and generate lean in versus well-learned lean back behaviors. Another major problem with ITV is that it has come to represent so many different things. ITV was heralded in the 1970s as the new electronic forum...