Interactivity necessitates all forms of transition, from retooling a broadcast facility to determining future ‘killer application’ revenue structures. To some, interactive content offers the promise of expanded storytelling tools. It also provides broadcasters with solutions for advertisers that dissuade remote control surfing. In fact, the remote becomes a device which helps keep eyeballs both on the ad and with the station.

For example, while watching a tv program, a consumer may not necessarily want to interact with it. But what may get them involved is an interactive trigger into a commercial cluster, where he/she gets something in return, be it a coupon, game, or participation in a poll.

France’s tps (Television par satellite) recently reported that more than 70% of its interactive subscribers would click ‘ok’ if given the option. If an advertiser can qualify a click, an enhanced, interactive strategy for advertising begins to emerge.

On the other hand, many in the tv industry wish ‘interactivity’ and all its implications would just go away. It means change and it means risk. Daily improvements in the technology of (unregulated) streaming video are perceived as a threat to the traditional broadcast model. Further, standards for online commerce must be arrived at and new broadcast hardware must be purchased.

Some believe the media frenzy surrounding digital interactive content is a phenomenon that will run out of steam in a couple of years. The Federal Communications Commission, the u.s. government agency for telecommunications regulation, will not remove analog licenses until 2006, with the Canadian industry to follow one year later.

There is presently no agreement on middleware standards. Opentv, Liberate, Microsoft tv and Media Highway are all pitching to set-top box manufacturers to choose their platform. Consumers think interactive tv is around the corner, yet many in the tv industry have never seen or heard of the stuff. The hype is just that, and the risk is disappointment, followed by disinterest.

At the core of interactivity is the increased opportunity to add layers of content. This will require new production models, budget templates, job descriptions and developmental approaches. It will call for new departments in broadcast facilities and for the Canadian production industry to join with the rapidly growing new media industry to maintain Canadian production market share. In brief, complacency is not an option.

Content is the business model

Content is a data engine – a brand digested through a palm pilot, tv show, on the Web, or from your car radio.

A recent European analysis reports that ‘by adding interactivity as a service layer, they [set-top box companies] strengthen their hold on viewers.’ It continues, ‘By the year 2000, the early leaders will already be established.’

As new technology is introduced to North America, the engine is re-skinned for that environment, further establishing brand. Each distribution medium, be it the Web or your cell phone, can only enhance brand establishment, with tv being the central databank. It is the one medium almost all consumers trust most.

Jamie Olivier, president of Vancouver-based Blue Zone Entertainment, an interactive solutions provider, believes tv’s established audience keeps it the dominant form. ‘Terrestrial broadcast also has the ability to include additional data at no extra cost to the broadcaster,’ he adds. ‘Serious value is content that is hard to get any other way. In the future, broadcasters will be able to send a ton of data with the broadcast and provide its audience with very rich and accessible information. [tv] is still the best way to multicast data.’

The tv industry then must look for and commission content that is not only compelling, but designed with a multi-platform re-purposing strategy. In building these models, broadcasters must consider the elimination of ‘primetime.’ Personal viewing recorders will allow consumers to decide what they want and when they want it. Advances in disc storage are accelerating at such a pace that it’s anticipated to cost $1/gigabyte to ‘napsterize’ video content.

There is a lot of uncharted water in this seeming tidal wave, but there will always be a need for content, regardless of how it is distributed, as well as a need for advertisers to sell their wares.

What is key is that content must be designed with each medium in mind. The online experience is different from the traditional. Computers enable audiences to control the experience, but computer interfaces do not translate well to tv, and computers are usually a solitary experience, whereas tv-watching is often a group activity.

Most u.s. broadcasters will not push the digital switch until 2006 at the earliest, so until then we have room to learn. To that end, universities are initiating graduate and undergraduate research in broadband interactivity. Companies are emerging which combine traditional content production with computer programmers and designers. Maybe we’re doing what we need to at this stage, and the rest of the answers aren’t there because we don’t need them yet.

Perhaps the Web is our learning ground while the standards advocates fight it out. For now, let’s test and research templates, create think tanks, focus with the public, and come out of the storm on a surfboard, armed with a content engine in whatever form the consumer will want. *

Beverley Milligan is ithe development executive for the Interactive Broadcast Development Group at Ryerson Polytechnic University in Toronto. Her work brings together industry members and researchers in interactive broadband to formulate technical, business and content strategies.