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I would like to thank the organisers for inviting me to the conference. I will be discussing interactive and digital television. I will begin by asking the audience to indicate whether they are a digital television household, whether they have interactive services, and whether they use them on a regular basis. It would appear that there are very few such users in the audience.
Interactive television is a very interesting market place: it promises much but is misunderstood by many. The underlying problem is that we are taking the traditionally passive medium of television watching into an interactive mode. Apart from teletext services, we are not used to doing much with our television sets, and it is very difficult to try and change 40 years of a lean back culture.
The problem with interactive television in Europe is that it is very closely related to digital television, which is not a united market place. The launch of digital television is not as revolutionary as the launch of colour television or VCRs. The need to have a colour television or a VCR was much greater than the need to have a television set that provides better picture and sound quality. It has thus been difficult to convince consumers to take up this product, and the marketing efforts have been very poor.
Research shows that people watch television to be entertained and to...
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