The New Interactive TV - Technology Evangelist

Remember Interactive TV ? What is today Time-Warner Cable ran a trial in Columbus, Ohio in 1976 for a new kind of cable television called QUBE that would allow viewers to buy goods directly from TV, to vote in polls, play video games, even to select different camera angles in sports coverage. I had a friend who worked in that trial and the things he told me about it both amazed me and also made me wonder why anyone would bother. Did we really need all that stuff?

Interactive TV in that incarnation went nowhere in the U.S., though ultimately thrived in Europe as Teletext. In Columbus it became clear that it cost too much for the benefit derived and the bandwidth that would have been devoted could be better used to bring more cable-only channels, which hadn’t even existed when Interactive TV was envisioned. In many ways Interactive TV was killed by HBO.

Interactive TV in a slightly different form was revived in the 1990s when we were going to use Digital TV to accomplish many of the same objectives. Again we had a surplus of bandwidth so interactivity was one way to use it.

It occurred to me recently that most of the promise of Interactive TV has been realized by the World Wide Web. We can buy, vote, and select like crazy and of course play games. About the only part that is missing is being able to select those camera angles for the big game.

Hey, why not?

Online video could easily replicate this coolest of all features from Interactive TV. There could be as many video feeds as there are cameras from a sports event, for example, and it would be simple for viewers to switch from one to another or even run several side-by-side. What appeals to me the most about this is that it is something that still can’t be done on broadcast or cable television. For sports, especially, this is a capability that could only be obtained over the net.

Imagine, then, a broadcast or cable TV network that covers a sports event with many cameras and markets as a unique Internet service, ALL those camera angles. It’s not something many people would need, but real enthusiasts would love it. And since it comes almost as a freebie on top of existing coverage, why not?

They’d call it My NFL.

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