Betfair

Because the [itvt] editorial team has been busy this week working on the TV of Tomorrow Show 2011, we are covering recent news in round-up/summary form. Once again, we anticipate that it will take us a few days to catch up with all the news we plan to cover: so if your company has sent us a press release or briefed us on an announcement, and you don't see your news covered in this issue, please bear with us.

Because the [itvt] editorial team has been on the road the past few weeks, we are covering recent news stories in summary/round-up form. We anticipate that it will take a couple of days for us to catch up with all the recent news: so if your company has sent us a press release or briefed us on an announcement, and you don't yet see your news covered in this issue, please bear with us. We apologize for any inconvenience to our readers.

Because the [itvt] editorial team has been on the road the past few weeks, we are covering recent news stories in summary/round-up form. We anticipate that it will take a couple of days for us to catch up with all the recent news: so if your company has sent us a press release or briefed us on an announcement, and you don't yet see your news covered in this issue, please bear with us. We apologize for any inconvenience to our readers.

The [itvt] editorial team is on the road this week, so we are covering most stories in round-up/summary form, and we anticipate that there will be some additional interruptions of our regular news publishing schedule beyond that. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience to our readers.

Premium programmer, Showtime Networks, on Wednesday announced the launch of the Showtime TV Widget, an interactive TV application designed for Internet-connected TV sets running the Yahoo! TV Widget Engine platform. According to the company, the new widget will provide viewers with interactive TV services, free sample episodes of Showtime original series season premieres, behind-the-scenes video features, "value-added content," and other "insider extras," via their connected TV's. "With the launch of the Showtime TV Widget, Showtime has an exciting new way to reach consumers," Robert Hayes, Showtime's SVP and general manager of digital media, said in a prepared statement.

Five companies in the interactive TV and online games/gaming space--Accedo Broadband, Betfair, PlayJam, RallyPoint and Two Way Media--announced Tuesday that they are establishing a new forum for the development of games on connected TV. The companies say that online games are a major driver in the multiplatform digital entertainment arena, attracting 38% of Internet users and generating billions of downloads via mobile and digital TV platforms, and that they believe such games will act as a "prime motivator for consumers to connect their TV's to the Internet."