NATPE Confab Highlights Slow Path to Convergence - Brief Article

Brandweek, Jan 29, 2001 by Erik Gruenwedel

The National Association of TV Programming Executives met last week in Las Vegas and found that the promised convergence of TV and the Internet was still a hot topic-but a slow starter, due to the lagging progress of broadband access and of interactive TV.

Reid Johnson, president and founder of Internet Broadcasting Systems, a company that builds Web sites for local TV news affiliates, said his company had generated $6 million in convergence revenue last year, despite the dot-com downturn.

By focusing the content of his sites mainly on weather and in-depth reporting on breaking national stories, "we had 60 million page views last month," claimed Johnson.

Internet companies, such as IBS and WorldNow Online Network, showed TV stations some merits of targeting local and regional advertising through branded Web sites. But interactive TV was the dominant theme for many NATPE presenters, although some downplayed its significance.

"There is legitimacy to interactive TV, but it's the flavor of the month, designed to make [the network's] programming more appealing," said Greg Drebin, svp of programming and production for TechTV, a San Francisco-based online network. It produces more than 1,300 hours of interactive content annually.

Regardless of the claims made by purveyors of ITV, if it doesn't enhance the viewing experience, it's not going to work, said Richard Bullwinkle, chief evangelist for Alviso, Calif.-based TiVo, the personal video recorder company that lets viewers record TV programs easily and skip the commercials.

According to Bullwinkle, ITV "is the core of what we do." Bullwinkle was at NATPE to promote TiVo Takes, a TV show that allows subscribers to preview and record programming up to 14 days in advance. "As a business, TiVo creates a great opportunity for advertisers to take advantage of our technology and [100,000] subscriber base. We're the product in a market that is interactive."

Microsoft introduced technology that will grant users direct response capabilities from interactive advertisers, without interrupting their television viewing. Microsoft was trying to generate appeal for its subscriber-based interactive television platforms. They include Mountain View, Calif.-based WebTV and newcomer Ultimate TV.

The new Microsoft technology will be available in February as a software upgrade, and creates a secured cache of personal information-including name, address and credit card number-on a hard drive that is relayed to marketers at a later time after the user has made an online purchase.

"Interactive TV is not about doing heavy-duty Internet work," said Mark Mullen, senior director with WebTV Networks. "It's about fundamentally changing viewers' relationships with [their] television sets."