Low Awareness of Interactive Television

Interactive television (iTV) is available to millions of digital cable and satellite subscribers in the United States and many media executives are predicting a big future for it after Rupert Murdoch's recent acquisition of satellite giant, DIRECTV. However, a recent survey by Ipsos-Insight suggests that only one-half (50%) of Americans have even heard of iTV, and most of these know little about it.

The iTV system allows viewers to perform activities such as retrieve information, purchase products or play along with TV game shows using a remote or keyboard. Ipsos-Insight's survey found that only 11% of US adults consider themselves somewhat or very familiar with iTV. There were no differences in awareness by gender, age or geographic region, but affluent households ($100,000 +) are most likely to be aware of iTV.

When asked how interested they are in specific iTV activities (regardless of their level of awareness), the most popular response was the ability to control different camera angles while watching sporting events, which interested about one-quarter (26%) of adults. The next most popular activities include requesting product information or a brochure and the ability to get statistics on favourite sports players while watching a sporting event (19% and 18%, respectively). Fifteen percent of survey respondents liked the idea of playing games against other viewers. The least popular activity was betting on horse races or other sports (5%).

'There has been so much industry hype about iTV, we expected higher levels of consumer awareness', says Lynne Bartos, a leader with the company's Cable, Media and Entertainment research division. 'iTV programmers and content providers still have some work to do to raise awareness levels, improve consumer understanding, and get consumers excited about the features and benefits of Interactive TV', added Bartos, who expects younger male sports enthusiasts (18 to 34 year-old) to be the earliest adopters.

More details are available from www.ipsos-na.com/news/pressrelease.cfm?id=2011

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas unless otherwise stated.

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