In this recorded episode of [itvt]'s talk radio show, "The TV of
Tomorrow Show with Tracy Swedlow," Alex Magoun, director of the
David Sarnoff Library, discusses David Sarnoff's legacy; outlines
parallels between the early development of television and the
development of interactive TV today; describes the David Sarnoff
Library's work; discusses Sarnoff's and Philo Farnsworth's respective
roles in the invention of television; and more.
To listen to the show,
click here
Next Live Broadcast of [itvt]'s Talk Radio Show
The next live broadcast of "The TV of Tomorrow Show with Tracy
Swedlow" is scheduled for Tuesday, July 1st at 10:00AM
Pacific/1:00PM Eastern. Tom Morgan, chief strategy officer of Move
Networks (clients include ABC, Discovery and Fox), will provide an
update on that company and on the interactive broadband video space
in general.
To listen to the show live, click here.
To call in with a question during the show's broadcast, dial 1-646-595-4343.
To submit a question or comment via text, use the chat application that appears
on the show's homepage during live broadcasts.
[itvt] is making past broadcasts of the show available on the show's
homepage.
Broadcast #32
: Sangita Verma, co-founder and CEO of TAG
Networks--a company that has developed a games-on-demand service,
called TAG, that integrates with existing VOD infrastructures and
supports community features and multi-device interaction--discusses
the company's trial deployment of the service with Time Warner Cable
in Dothan, Alabama (note: according to TAG Networks, during the first
four months of the trial, which began last December, TAG achieved a
40% penetration rate among digital households, and the average
playing time across digital households increased 238%); shares usage
trends and demographic data from the trial; describes the company's
technology and marketing strategies; explains its relationship with
ActiveVideo Networks (formerly ICTV); outlines its future plans; and
much more.
Broadcast #31
: Steven Roberts, SVP of new media and business
development at DirecTV, and Tyler Slocum, the company's senior
director of ITV and DVR services, provide an update on DirecTV's
interactive TV offerings. Topics discussed include usage statistics for
DirecTV's various ITV services, the company's ITV strategy, its future
ITV and DVR plans, and more.
Broadcast #30
: Michael Finn, VP of advertising sales at DISH
Network, and Scott Higgins, the company's director of interactive
programming, discuss DISH's new interactive TV advertising deal with
NBC Universal, and the company's plans to make increasing use of the
DVR hard drive for its interactive TV offerings.
Broadcast #29
: Jim Louderback, CEO of Revision3, provides an
overview of his company--which bills itself as "an actual TV network
for the Web," and which produces its own original, broadcast-quality
programming. Topics discussed include funding, download numbers,
revenues, demographics, distribution strategy, content strategy,
advertising partnerships, new shows, and more.
Broadcast #28
: A panel of interactive TV experts--Steve Borelli, VP of
marketing and business development at Integra5; industry analyst,
Leslie Ellis (author of the popular Multichannel News column,
"Translation Please"); Will Kreth, director of product management for
interactive TV at Time Warner Cable; Alex Libkind, founder and COO
of Zodiac Interactive; Mike Malcy, VP of marketing and business
development at Vidiom Systems; and Gary Sohmers, chairman and
president of Interactive Meet and Greet Entertainment
(IMAGE)--review the 2008 NCTA Cable Show. Topics discussed
include the very well-attended tru2way Developers Conference that
immediately preceded the show; what the cable operators were saying
about their plans to support the ETV and tru2way standards;
noteworthy interactive TV applications on the show floor; the emerging
popularity of social-networking ITV applications; what should have
been discussed and showcased at the show, but wasn't; and much, much
more.
Broadcast #27
: Richard Baker, EVP of sales and marketing at UK-
based interactive TV software provider, ANT (note: Baker, who joined
the company earlier this year, was previously general manager of
technology products and services for the EMEA region at
RealNetworks), discusses the company's new multiplatform application
development strategy, its new Twitter ITV application, its new
proof-of-concept EPG application which displays up to 45 channels on
a single screen, the importance of developing hybrid solutions (e.g.
DTT and IPTV), and much more.
Broadcast #26: Silicon Valley pundit and author, Andrew Keen ("The
Cult of the Amateur"), discusses his skeptical take on user-generated
content and other participatory media, why he is not a fan of the
Creative Commons movement, his views on the economics of
broadband video, and more.
Broadcast #25: A panel of interactive TV experts--Patrick Donoghue ,
VP of interactive TV product management at Time Warner Cable ;
industry analyst, Leslie Ellis (author of the column, "Translation
Please "); Bill Niemeyer , chief of analysis and research at BlackArrow ;
David Preisman, VP of interactive television at Showtime Networks;
and Lori Schwartz , SVP and director of the Interpublic Emerging
Media Lab --and special guests, Steven Roberts , SVP of new media and
business development at DirecTV, and Amy Jacobson Kurokawa , chair
of the San Francisco Chapter of the Producers Guild of America
(PGA), discuss their picks for the most important ITV stories of April
and provide a snapshot of the current state of the industry. Topics
discussed include NBC Universal's Digital Studio initiative and
whether it can serve as a model for a new relationship between the
advertising industry and the cable and satellite industries; the latest
developments in tru2way/OCAP; and the upcoming NCTA Cable
Show.
Broadcast #24: Mark Goldenson --founder and CEO of PlayCafe.com , a
company which streams live, free-to-play game shows that allow
viewers to play along, chat with hosts and other players, form teams,
contribute questions, and win prizes (note: Ken Jennings, the holder of
the record for the longest winning streak on the US game show,
"Jeopardy!," recently appeared on PlayCafe.com as a special
guest)--discusses the company's offering, its business model, the impact
on the industry of the UK participation TV scandal, and new features
the company plans to offer, including making it possible for end-users
to produce their own shows.
Broadcast #23: Tim Wahlers, founder and CEO of Vidiom Systems, the
company's VP marketing, Mike Malcy, its VP of engineering services,
Walden Miller, and its VP of strategic initiatives, David Housman, discuss
their work with the cable industry on tru2way/OCAP, describe some of the
interactive TV projects they are currently engaged in, provide an overview
of Vidiom's OCAP testing services, and offer a preview of the upcoming
second annual tru2way Developers Conference. (Note: the conference--which
is produced by the NCTA and CableLabs, and sponsored by Vidiom--will be
held in New Orleans on Saturday, May 17th and Sunday, May 18th, just prior
to the NCTA Cable Show. Areas of discussion will include programming,
platforms, consumer electronics, application development, and retail
opportunities, and the event will also feature hands-on workshops.)
Broadcast #22: James Joyce, EVP of business development at
Netherlands-based international TV formats developer, 2waytraffic (note:
the company is in the process of being acquired by Sony), discusses the
company's participation TV formats, the challenges involved in bringing its
participation TV offerings to the US market, the impact of the recent
participation TV scandal in the UK, and more.
Broadcast #21: Marcelino Ford-Livene and David Jensen, co-governors
of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Interactive Media Peer
Group (IMPG), and Geoff Katz, chairman of the IMPG's Primetime
Emmy Awards Working Group, discuss the Academy's newly issued
call for entries for the 2007-2008 Primetime Emmy Awards for
Outstanding Creative Achievement in Interactive Media (note: the
Awards will recognize excellence in two areas of competition this year:
Fiction and Non-Fiction).
Broadcast #20: Magnus Eriksson, chief development manager, and
Christian Bjorkman, director of special projects at Mindark, the
company behind the virtual world, Entropia Universe, discuss the
interactive enhancements the company created for the Swedish
television drama, "The Truth about Marika." Viewers of the
show--which was recently awarded the Emmy for Best Interactive TV
Service by the International Academy of Television Arts &
Sciences--could participate by searching for clues within Entropia
Universe that allowed them to solve a show-related mystery. In
addition, they could interact within the virtual world with avatars of the
show's main characters. Eriksson and Bjorkman also provide an
in-depth overview of Entropia Universe: among other things, the virtual
world has a "real cash economy," whose currency is pegged to the US
dollar (at a rate of 10-1), and which allows participants to earn money.
Broadcast #19: Cathy Hetzel, president of the Advanced Media
Information division at business-intelligence company, Rentrak, and
her colleague, Dustin Encelewski, the company's director of
technological business development, discuss recent developments with
its OnDemand Essentials offering--a Web-based ASP service which
measures and reports anonymous, aggregate VOD usage data, such as
viewership volumes and trends, and which is intended to provide cable
operators, content providers and advertisers with customizable reports
designed to help them better understand viewers' VOD content
preferences. They also discuss Rentrak's relationship with the cable
industry, cast light on the company's future plans for its Essentials
product line, discuss its competitors, and provide some interesting
statistics about VOD usage that the company has gleaned over the past
few months.
Broadcast #18: Gary Sohmers, president and chairman of Interactive
Meet and Greet Entertainment (IMAGE), discusses his company's
flagship Video Queue technology, which allows TV viewers to have
face-to-face encounters with celebrities. (Note: Sohmers will probably
be familiar to [itvt] readers who are also PBS viewers: he is a regular
guest on the popular program, "Antiques Roadshow," where he
appraises toys, collectibles and memorabilia.)
Broadcast #17: AirPlay chairman and CEO, Morgan Guenther, talks
about his company's new deal with Sony Pictures Television to provide
multiplayer play-along mobile gaming for the popular game show,
"Jeopardy!"; about some of the other new projects the company will be
undertaking this year; about its business model and its plans to scale its
business; about his experiences at TiVo (where he served as president
from 2001-2003); and more.
Broadcast #16: Phil Bender, CableLabs' project director for OpenCable,
and Roger Brinkley, community leader for the Mobile & Embedded
Community at Sun Microsystems, provide an in-depth update on the
latest developments in OpenCable/OCAP/tru2way; discuss the
"OpenCable Project" that recently launched on Java.net; provide a
preview of CableLabs' CableNET showcase at the upcoming NCTA
Cable Show; and more.
Broadcast #15: Ashwin Navin, co-founder and president of
peer-to-peer technology provider, BitTorrent, discusses that company's
recently announced agreement with Comcast, which calls for them to
work together to address infrastructural issues raised by the growing
popularity of video and other rich media on the Internet. In addition, a
panel of high-profile interactive TV experts--Paula Byrne, founder and
managing director of Pushbutton; Bill Niemeyer, chief of analysis and
research at BlackArrow; and David Preisman, VP of interactive
television at Showtime Networks--discuss their picks for the most
important ITV stories of March. Topics discussed include Navic's
announcement that its Admira media placement platform now supports
interactivity; UK broadcaster Five's abandonment of red-button
services; Showtime Networks' launch of a range of multiplatform
interactive services to support its high-profile new series, "The
Tudors"; the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences' call for entries
for its interactive Emmy awards; and much more.
Broadcast #14: Will Kreth, director of product management for interactive
TV at Time Warner Cable , provides [itvt] readers/listeners with an exclusive
on OEDN.net, a newly launched OCAP/EBIF developer network. He
discusses, among other things, the group's resources and goals, its
efforts to reach out to the Hollywood and academic communities, the
current state of OCAP and EBIF development and deployment, the
relationship between OCAP and Blu-ray, and much more. In addition, a
panel of high-profile interactive TV experts--Patrick Donoghue, VP of
ITV product management at Time Warner Cable; Bill Niemeyer, chief
of analysis and research at BlackArrow; and David Preisman, VP of
interactive television at Showtime Networks -- discuss their picks for
the most important ITV stories of February. Topics discussed include
new VOD technologies from SeaChange International that allow
advertising to be inserted into interior program breaks and streamed
video games; the emerging market for VOD games services; ESPN360's
launch of HD broadband video, powered by Move Networks' technology;
Ensequence's new Blu-ray Disc partnership with Sony; and much more.
Broadcast #13: A panel of interactive TV experts--Patrick Donoghue,
VP of ITV product management at Time Warner Cable; Bill Niemeyer,
chief of analysis and research at BlackArrow; and David Preisman,
VP of interactive television at Showtime Networks--discuss their picks
for the most important ITV stories of January. Topics discussed include
CES; next-generation remote control and touchscreen technologies;
the emergence of cable MSO's as broadband TV content aggregators;
new technologies that bypass the traditional set-top box; CableLabs'
rebranding of OCAP as "tru2way"; the future of EBIF; new data on ITV
from Ensequence, Backchannelmedia and Gemstar-TV Guide; and
the persistence of two-screen ITV.
Broadcast #12: Andrew Solmssen,
EVP of multiplatform interactive
design agency, Schematic, discusses the impact of the company's recent
acquisition by advertising and marketing giant, WPP; its work on the
ABC.com Full Episode Player, Starz' Vongo service, and other
interactive and broadband TV projects; its work on video walls,
touchscreens, "Wiimotes" (Wii remotes) and other new interactive
platforms; using design to boost the efficacy of broadband video
advertising and of content navigation systems; and much more.
Broadcast #11: Steve Shannon, EVP and general manager of product
management at EPG developer, Gemstar-TV Guide, discusses, among
other things, the company's EPG products and its product roadmap;
new features that will be offered by its EPG's over the coming
year; My TV Guide, its new suite of cross-platform (TV, Internet
and mobile) guidance solutions; its work on social TV and
programming recommendation solutions; its work--via GuideWorks,
its joint-venture with Comcast--on a new, graphically rich
OCAP-based EPG; the future of EPG advertising; and much more.
Broadcast #10: Kristen Fergason is VP of marketing at Maven
Networks, a company that offers a software platform which allows
content providers and brand marketers to create interactive broadband
VOD channels (its customers include 20th Century Fox, Gemstar-TV
Guide, Univision, Virgin Records, General Motors, PepsiCo, Gannett,
Scripps Networks, and A&E Television Networks). The company
recently launched an advertising platform which it bills as introducing a
series of new, non-proprietary formats that are significantly more
engaging than pre-roll ads (the currently dominant form of broadband
video advertising), make for a better user experience, and deliver
higher-value ad units for advertisers. In the interview, Fergason
describes the new platform and the kinds of interactive advertising it
enables; outlines Maven's product-development plans; and discusses
the Internet TV Advertising Forum, an industry group that Maven and a
number of other companies recently established in order to "solve the
challenges and deficiencies associated with current online video
advertising models" and to develop new standards and formats for
interactive broadband video advertising.
Broadcast #9: Hans Fischmann is general manager of advanced media
at Charter Media, the advertising arm of cable MSO, Charter
Communications. Since he joined Charter Media in January, 2007, he
and his team have launched over 600 interactive TV and VOD
advertising campaigns. He describes the kinds of interactive TV
advertising offered by Charter Media; provides statistics on the efficacy
of the company's ITV ads; describes its efforts to market its ITV
advertising capabilities; provides some thoughts on the cable industry
ITV advertising initiative, "Project Canoe"; discusses "Did You See
It?," a new channel Charter is launching that will be devoted to
interactive TV advertising; and much more.
Broadcast #8: Peter Price, president and CEO of the New York-based
National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, one of two
organizations that are responsible for television's annual Emmy
awards (the other is the Los Angeles-based Academy of Television
Arts & Sciences), discusses, among other things, the relationship
between the two Academies, and their ongoing legal dispute over
the National Academy's awards for Advanced Media (which were
presented Monday at CES 2008).
Broadcast #7: Upstate New York resident, James Cawley, whose
background includes, among other things, a stint as an
Elvis-impersonator, is the executive producer of Star Trek New
Voyages (startreknewvoyages.com), a production company that
produces original episodes of "Star Trek," based on the characters from
that show's first season (Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Sulu, Uhura,
etc.). Downloads of these hour-long, fan-generated broadband TV
episodes have been in the multiple millions, and their audience base
appears to be growing rapidly. Cawley shares his thoughts on
producing original, fan-generated "Star Trek" programming for the
Internet; describes the events that led to the formation of Star Trek New
Voyages; discusses the company's relationship with CBS (the owner of
the "Star Trek" franchise); provides a preview of new episodes and new
characters that the company has in the pipeline (including "Star Trek's"
first gay character); discusses the possibility of making the show
interactive or building a social network around it; and much more.
Broadcast #6: Three high-profile figures from the interactive TV
space--Patrick Donoghue, VP of ITV product management at Time Warner
Cable; Bill Niemeyer, chief of analysis and research at BlackArrow;
and David Preisman, VP of interactive television at Showtime
Networks--provide a retrospective of the year in interactive TV,
present their picks for the year's most important ITV stories, and
predict the important ITV trends for 2008. Topics discussed include
the rise of user-generated content; the demise of TMG; the
significance of the top-secret interactive TV advertising initiative,
"Canoe"; the emergence of big-budget broadband TV programming;
EchoStar's purchase of Sling Media; DirecTV's purchase of ReplayTV;
and much more.
Broadcast #5: Three senior executives from mobile interactive TV
specialist, SinglePoint--president and CEO, Rich Begert; VP of
industry relations, Doug Busk; and director of marketing, Philippe
Poutonnet--discuss, among other things, the company's recent deal with
NBC Universal. The deal will see SinglePoint providing mobile
interactive/participation TV services for a range of NBC Universal's
programming and channels, including NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, Bravo,
Telemundo, USA Network, NBC Sports, and NBC News.
Broadcast #4: Steve Rosenbaum is founder and CEO of
Magnify.net, a company that provides a new Web 2.0 service
which allows end-users to create video galleries/channels
complete with social networks. He discusses Magnify.net's
service and the business model behind it; provides examples
of how it is being used; outlines the company's current
strategy and future plans; and more.
Broadcast #3: Brian Seth Hurst, a well-known figure in
interactive TV circles, was recently elected as vice chairman
of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, the
organization behind the Primetime Emmys. His election marks
the first time ever that a new media specialist has served in
such a senior role at the Academy. Hurst discusses what his
election says about the evolution of the Academy and of the
television establishment in general; the significance of the
ongoing writers' strike for the interactive and broadband TV
industries; and much more.
Broadcast #2: Jodie McAfee, who was formerly SVP of
corporate development and marketing at The Media Group
(TMG), a high-profile interactive TV advertising and
programming company that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
earlier this year, discusses that company's demise; his new
company, BoomerangiTV; the cable industry interactive TV
advertising initiative known as "Project Canoe"; the current
state of the ITV advertising industry in general; and more.
Broadcast #1: Louis Slothouber and Dan Levinson of BIAP
discuss their company's technologies; the challenges involved
in deploying the company's interactive TV applications (which
include eBay on TV, Yellow Pages on TV, and Fantasy
Football and Baseball Trackers); the company's patent
portfolio; the current state of the cable industry; ITV
standards; artificial intelligence; emerging market
opportunities; and more.
