| Close |
| Comment |
The Consumer Electronics Show
January 5th - January 9th, 2001, Las Vegas
With a menagerie of promising consumer technology, the Las Vegas Convention Center was saturated with MP3 devices, advanced audio coding, wireless home appliances, DVD recorders, and satellite radio services. Despite the overwhelming novelty of these new products and services interactive television found a way to be conspicuous. Over the recent holiday period consumers have shown a more acute interest in the personalization that iTV networks and portals can provide. Personal Video Recorders continue to gain strength as they are consolidated into various set top boxes. As these developments occur the pace quickens toward establishing a future typical television experience.
Given the target audience for this convention, there was little exhibitor's representation by interactive content providers. However, a few of the principle players were present in the technology sessions offered at CES. There was no argument that consumer focus groups continue to show a considerable hunger for the components of an interactive television experience. Unfortunately, the business model that has yet to successfully satisfy venture capitalists requires more than just a hungry audience. The repetitious complaint of incompatibility with middleware, hardware and authoring tools leave advertisers reluctant to fund a seemingly inefficient path to the "pot of gold". When directly asked if content authoring tools are finding more common ground representatives from major content providers, and authoring tool developers could not answer in the affirmative. Clearly, content continues to be developed, then adjusted to fit the delivery scheme of the regional host. This area of questioning often leads to mention of ATVEF. It did, and when asked if the ATVEF standard was strong enough to lead the industry to content development compatibility, the same panel could do no better than suggest that ATVEF provides a good foundation, with one panelist frowning on that suggestion. Still, no other standard, or trend was offered as an encouragement.
Despite a lack of revenue streams, networks continue to spend significant money on their iTV infrastructure. Demonstrations of existing and future services led to discussions about the iTV experience a consumer should expect. Both single screen and two screen experiences can be considered common. Arguments were made suggesting one or the other will ultimately become obsolete, but there was not much evidence offered that would indicate a survivor. The viewing time of an iTV consumer, already suggested to be longer than a linear television viewer, is expected to increase with the ability to personalize a viewing schedule with the growth of PVRs and video on demand. A panel of major iTV network representatives was asked about accommodating local enhancements. The question was met with mild enthusiasm. One major sports network intends to use national templates to provide a screen location for the insertion of local enhancements. The ability to have data such as local high school sports scores is attractive, adding value to the national feed. Another nation programmer intends to use local enhancements to regionally manage competition spawned by their collection of game shows allowing local advertisers to offer prizes and incentives to iTV subscribers. The entire panel acknowledged wide range of possible revenue streams local enhancements could bring to an iTV experience.
While the Western Cable Show and the Consumer Electronics Show offer different focuses on interactive television, evidence from both leads to similar conclusions. Consumers want iTV. Advertisers are discouraged by the cost of deployment. And hardware manufacturers, middleware providers, and content authors will need financial courage to break the logjam of inefficiency, unifying the industry.
