LAS VEGAS -- After years of unfulfilled hype, interactive TV is finally ready to make the move to prime time.
Despite a hodge-podge of services and sluggish market growth, panel and audience members at the National Association of Broadcasters convention were bullish Tuesday, agreeing that two-way TV will be a hit. Someday.
The turnout attested to the growing interest in ITV. The windowless room was packed with several hundred perspiring people, many standing three deep in the aisles.
"I was on a similar panel at NAB four years ago," said David Reese, president of ACTV, a New York digital media producer. "Then, there were more people on the panel than in the audience."
Reese was one of the half-dozen panelists, all representatives of ITV-related companies, who took the opportunity to pitch their products. The range of services underscores just how nebulous the concept of ITV remains.
At one end of the spectrum, WebTV and WorldGate Communications offer the entire Internet on television, as well as "enhanced" programming linking regular TV shows to online content. Viewers watching Satuday Night Live on WebTV, for example, can click onscreen buttons to get more information about the show's guests. WorldGate subscribers can go directly from a CNN news spot to a text article on the same subject.
At the other extreme, Wink Communications simply adds onscreen buttons to regular commercials for the likes of Clorox and AT&T, which viewers can click to order brochures or discount coupons. No Net connection is required. In fact, the system even works on analog broadcast systems.
"The ITV market is extremely confused right now, with lots of people offering lots of products," said panelist Jan Steenkamp, CEO of software maker OpenTV. "It's hard to distinguish what's real and what won't work out."
