Interactive television in 2007

Of course I am very curious about how you think about interactive television and when it will break through! See below for the full story from Ordina.

Interactive television is at the point of breaking through in the market, that predict the consultants of Ordina Emerging Services. From there experience of actual development in the market and experience at the customers they identified five main reasons why interactive television will break through this year.

There are a few barriers for the development of interactive television in The Netherlands. The cable companies waited a long time to make the necessary investments in the network which is a key element for the development of interactive television. Besides this the possibilities of interactivity within the television was not fully determined and used by the advertisers. This resulted many times in disappointing results. Finally there was too little investment in convincing the consumer of the great advantages of interactive television and the development of attractive content. The combination of these factors slowed the breakthrough of the new concept of television. But this all will change in 2007. There are five reasons why interactive television will break through this year.

1. The infrastructure is becoming more sophisticated, there are more decoders which make interactivity possible and more and more cities are connected to the glassfiber network.
2. Contentproviders and commercial organisations see more and more the advantages of interactivity via television. Big organisations like MTV, Telegraaf and Holland Casino are positive about interactive television and the possibilities to communicatie (interact) with their costumers.
3. There is a strong demand from the consumer for MyTime. Customers want to decide themselves where and when they want tp watch their favourite shows. Time-shifting and video on demand makes this possible.
4. The convergence of television with the internet. The internet and television are coming together, just look at the big success of YouTube.
5. The rise of connected game consoles (PS3, Zune, Wii). All new game consoles for the living room have the possibility to connect and use other services.

"Like every innovation there are different factors which decide whether a product is a success of not. The main group of the consumers prefers to wait untill they decide to try something new and unknown. It is for organisations then very important to invest in new services and business concepts and make the advantages of it known to the public. Albert Mombarg, Ordina

Translated from Ordina press.