2 Why IPTV?
works when you rely on the participants. As in a computer game, the actions
of the user can change what happens on the screen. And games technology
is probably one key in creating this new extension of the medium.
That said, there are plenty of experiments with different ways of storytelling,
for instance nonlinear videos (think of it as curved loops of stories turning
back on each other), which create a different experience, but the existing,
linear, format is likely to dominate IPTV programming for a long time to come.
However, if the “TV” part is resistant to change, the “IP” part will make it.
When broadcasts were analog, there were always pioneers trying out ways
to interact with the audience through chat and web pages, and although the
formats were interesting, they were never successes.
Interactive programs have not been a success in most of the world. In
general (apart from the UK), there has not been a widespread deployment
of interactive video applications, although there is one exception: programs
where the viewers can vote.
Users tend either to interact at any time (e.g., when they are using the ser-
vice to get additional information – during sports events for statistics – and are
interested in getting information all the time, not just when a player scores),
or once the linear program has ended (“half-time factual and learning” view-
ers). The main reason to interact is to get a more convenient and enhanced
experience, and to engage in the program to be entertained in a richer way.
Usage peaks after the TV program is broadcast, even if it is made available
on video on demand (VoD). The most efficient trigger for interaction is the
call for interaction from the presenter – in other words, when the viewers
are asked to interact, they will interact, if they know how.
Interactive TV is not the web, however. On a website, there are hyperlinks,
which make the site into a big ball of interconnected pages. There is no
single “right” way to go through it. A television show is different – it has a
linear story. The storyline may be fixed in time (which is usual, since that
is how people experience the world); but it can also be fixed in space, and
in relation to other stories. Although spatial stories are more complicated to
tell, these are where the next generation of user experiences are likely to
happen.
The most successful interactive service is betting. Even if you regard it as
user-provided content, the function of betting is to intensify the user exper-
ience, while at the same time it creates an additional revenue source for
the broadcaster (however, note that betting is forbidden in many countries).
There is one thing that can be gained from the betting experience: if the con-
tent and the interactivity work together, instead of being disconnected, they
enhance each other. This also makes the case for live interactive TV, which
is also cheaper to produce than TV programs built out of chunks of video by
an automatic system on the fly.
In interactive TV, the content creator works more like an advertising com-
pany than a traditional broadcaster. It produces content for which it sells the
rights; if the buyer is a broadcaster, the broadcaster gets the rights to show the
program a number of times, under certain conditions. Usually, the content