Comcast Spotlight Touts Survey Claiming 67% of Comcast Subs Interested in Interactive TV

In a posting on a corporate blog last week, Bob Ivins, VP of data products at Comcast's advertising sales arm, Comcast Spotlight, shared the results of some research the company recently conducted to gauge Comcast customers' enthusiasm for interactive TV. "Comcast has invested heavily over the past year to make TV more interactive," Ivins wrote. "These capabilities will give consumers the ability to interact with the shows that they like, through voting and polling applications, and with the brands they buy, through 'request more information' capabilities. With this technology deployed to over 10 million homes across Comcast's footprint, innovative advertisers who are seeking consumer engagement are moving beyond testing to larger and larger programs. However, before we all get excited about ITV, Comcast thought it would be useful to get a consumer's perspective. Using Comcast Advisors Panel which is a research panel of approximately 15,000 households that are geographically and demographically representative of our footprint, we [did] exactly that."

According to Ivins, Comcast asked Comcast Advisors panelists the following question: "Interactive TV is coming--that means you will be able to interact more directly with the content on TV, using your remote control. You will be able to interact with popular TV shows (e.g., voting on 'America's Got Talent,' or answering trivia questions during sporting events) and commercials (e.g., request more information about the product from the advertiser). How interested are you in interacting with your TV in these ways?"

Of the 839 panelists who responded to the question, Ivins wrote, 67% stated that they were interested in interactive TV: 28% described themselves as "very interested" and 39% as "somewhat interested"; while 21% described themselves as "not very interested" and 12% as "not at all interested."