Interactive digital television (iDTV) will reach 80 million European homes by 2005, according to a recent report by Forrester Research. The “walled garden” system currently available on interactive platforms will fall, allowing full internet access through TV screens. There are currently 7 million subscribers to interactive television systems throughout Europe. This will double to 14 million this year as walled gardens begin to fall and operators assemble more open systems. Net standards will improve to transfer internet content to TV screens, and manufacturers will sell receivers for free-to-air iDTV through retail.
Current systems will have to change their business models as technology improves. Forrester expects SkyDigital, the main player in the UK interactive market, to transform itself into a multimedia platform service provider. Dr Therese Torris, director of European e-commerce at Forrester, said: “Operators like CanalSatellite and BSkyB will successfully redefine themselves as iDTV portals. Others – including lagging cable operators – would be well advised to link up with independent portals such as AOL Europe in order to speed up their deployments.”
“TV will be the platform for consumer interactivity. With a potential base of over 200 million TV sets in Europe, iDTV will overtake the internet as Europe’s primary e-commerce platform,” Torris said. A recent report from BMRB corroborated these findings by citing evidence that shopping via interactive television is growing faster than online transactions.
