• A special section of one Hall was devoted to about 150 "dot com/net" companies in a new New Media Pavilion.
• "Convergence", "digital", "new media", and "ITV" ads and articles appeared in all the daily literature and in promotional collateral for NATPE.
• Microsoft sponsored the first i-Pitch event mimicking the venerable "Pitch Me" contest for new content ideas.
• There were more panels this year that focused on or either talked briefly about ITV, but not enough.
• A bigger Webstation Lounge served as a meeting place to talk and meet people in ITV-related industries.

While this is true of the NATPE organization, it wasn't necessarily true in many of the big TV panels. One panel called "The International Appetite for U.S. Programming" was emblematic of how the TV industry, at large, still in some ways is in retrograde/shock about what ITV will or can do.For example, at the end of what was mostly an hour of speeches about standard content strategies from reps. of cable channels, Aaron of Sun Microsystems/JavaTV project brazenly stood up and asked two questions of the panel: 1)Are you excited about ITV? and, 2) Are you afraid of ITV? In both cases, the entire panel raised their hands nervously high above their heads and the audience murmured. One other interesting panel, however, focused directly on the future of HDTV called "Digital Daze" moderated by Nick DeMartino, director of strategic planning for the American Film Institute (heavily involved in ITV related issues). This panel covered challenges still ahead, the promise of datacasting, digital station makeovers, and much more. Some points that came out of that panel were:

• HDTV implementation is behind schedule (Kresch - PwC) Broadcasters are getting extensions. ROI is important.
• HDTV is a long haul investment. "We can be competitive". (Goodman- Capital Broadcasting)
• Intel is aggressively behind datacasting (Lopez - Intel) eBusiness to eHomes - The Center for Datacasting Innovation
• HDTV makes the blacks in film look unbelievable. (DeMartino).

Ultimately, each project was judged by a panel (a few with ITV credentials) and set against criteria such as Feasibility, Revenue Potential, TV Appropriateness, High Concept, etc. The variety of pitching styles was pretty evident. Some sang, stripped, played with puppets, or played the banjo. A few were straight-forward attempts to pitch things in 1 minute flat - hard to do. ITVT interviewed many of these people before and after the contest. Several general observations can be made:

• Most people didn't have a clue what ITV really was. To them, ITV meant their show would have a Web site in narrowband or broadband. The judges ultimately picked projects unaware of ITV technologies. The 2 winners were: 1) a home improvement game show called "Space Challenger" from a guy named Jonathan Werk, 2) an expert doctor show for advice on health from Dr. Cynthia Shelby-Lane - who also won the Pitch Me contest.
• Interestingly, most of the projects seemed to revolve around featuring communications with or allowing viewers to communicate back with the stars or producers. This observation is crucial as ITVT believes the ITV industry will be driven by the viewer's need for communication and interaction just as the Internet was driven by email at first. In other words, the energy and enthusiasm exhibited by these people for this type of programming makes a very strong statement. Just because they sung off tune or they didn't have a clue about the ATVEF specification, doesn't mean they didn't have an instinct for what would work for them. ITVT believes we must pay attention to that. We must incorporate these sorts of applications as a central type of programming (e.g email, telephony multi-user game play, and chat) to the point it becomes integral to the video content.
• After the event, there was a lot of schmoozing and card exchanges. All of a sudden, ITV people were everywhere to be found.

1) People were asking about the health of the Mixed Signals/ Sony partnership post-Rob Tercek split to PacketVideo. CEO Alex Thompson said to ITVT that everything is planned out to minute detail. "Like any relationship with a big corporation, things can get held back; however, we are very on track."

2) Various opinions circled about the state of ATVEF (nowhere to be found at the event) and ATSC.

Interesting Exhibitors (mostly broadband)

The FeedRoom - excellent broadband interface viewers can control
innovatv.com - has 9 RoadRunner partnerships and a new codec for
controlling a portion of the streaming image
PacketVideo - everybody wanted to see what they were doing.
Plus - CreativePlanet, Eveo, ExtendMedia

**End Note

Want to say thank you to the NATPE people for welcoming us further into their community so warmly. I'm sure the ITV presence will continue to grow as time goes on - so watch us.

Copyright 1998 - 2004 [ITVT] | Swedlow. All rights reserved