The UK's largest commercial broadcaster, the Independent Television Network (generally referred to by the acronym, "ITV"), has launched mobile and red-button interactive TV services to accompany its long-running, flagship soap opera, "Coronation Street." The mobile service, accessed by texting "mobile" to the shortcode, 63330 (3 and Orange customers can view the service's content directly through their operator portals), offers video clips of key moments from the show, as well as information on its upcoming storylines, and a service called "Corrie Club" that provides text alerts of major Coronation Street news. In addition, users of the service can purchase exclusive ringtones and wallpapers featuring the stars of the show.
The red-button service provides alternative video streams of Coronation Street content, and allows fans of the show to watch exclusive news and gossip; catch up on episodes they might have missed; view sneak previews of that week's new episodes; access exclusive interviews with the show's cast; view montages of the show's history; and enter competitions to win Coronation Street merchandise or a visit to the set of the show. ITV's partners in the development of the Coronation Street red-button service were Pushbutton (which was responsible for the application's design), Two Way TV (Two Way TV's commercial director, Guy Templer, told [itvt] that the company "supplied all of the code templates and backend used to create the application, and built the video switching functionality for ITV"; he added that the app "runs on the 'Geoff' platform, a technology supplied and managed by Two Way TV"), and Tamblin (a Tamblin representative told [itvt] that the company's i-ZoneTV Builder and i-ZoneTV Core tools are being used to manage and deploy all interactive templates and content: Builder enables the show's production team to draw on a template library to construct a range of the service's interactive applications, while Core's Web-based interface allows ITV to populate those applications with text and graphics, the representative explained). The show's mobile service, meanwhile, was built and is maintained by the Mobile Interactive Group (MIG) and Refresh.
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