ICTV Providing Interactive TV to PCCW

I went to the ribbon cutting for ICTV's new offices in downtown San Jose. It was quite a ceremony with the mayor of San Jose and two council members attending. The company moved to a downtown high rise rather than a Silicon Valley tilt up in order project an image appropriate for a media entertainment company.


ICTV gave me a demo of the kind of interactive services that its systems can provide. It showed a browser like screen on the TV that included one or more video windows along with surround texts and menus that can be selected using the remote control. It is proposing a business model in the U.S. where the programming would be built by programmers such as CNN and then delivered to cable companies as MPEG-2 streams. These cable companies would then deliver them over their video on demand infrastructure. This approach means that any digital set-top box capable of receiving video on demand services will be able to receive this interactive content.


PCCW accounts for 850 thousand of the one million viewers supported by ICTV's systems and services. PCCW uses ICTV for its TV based shopping service as well as for PCCW's successful film trailer service. A PCCW viewer can watch trailers for movies currently at the theater and then reserve seats and buy tickets for a particular showing. PCCW told me that it is selling more seats using the TV service than are being sold over the Internet.

ICTV looks like it has a good approach that will complement both cable and TelcoTV services. PCCW is showing that it is an effective way to enhance an IPTV service. From what I saw, I think that other IPTV service providers should take a look at it themselves.

BT Promoting ShapeShifted TV

BT is promoting what it calls New Media 2 (NM2), which permits viewers to change the story line. The idea is that producers will shoot multiple story lines, which the viewers can select and make the viewing experience more personal. The NM2 website provides more information on ShapeShifting.

BT has conducted a number of NM2 trials with broadcasters but has no firm plans to commercialise NM2 as part of BT’s own IPTV BT Vision. It is considering various ways to monetize the service, including pay-per-view, subscription and advertising-funded models.

The first ShapeShifted TV program was aired in Finland in December 2006. Viewers were able to affect the drama between two unlikely lovers by sending SMS text messages. Viewers saw their SMS text messages on the screen and heard the characters respond to their texts. Accidental Lovers was run four times in total, showing twelve different evolutions of the love affair – each of them different, so if viewers did not get what the wished for the first time, they could try again. News, drama, and documentary pilots using the same technology have also been tested.

This is an interesting form of interactivity that can enhance the IPTV experience. Clearly a two-way IPTV network can provide a higher level of interactivity than using SMS. It should even be possible to use it in conjunction with an on demand program to provide a purely personal rather than shared experience.