Olympics spur record use of Interactive TV

LONDON: A record-breaking 6.1 million UK television watchers have used an interactive service that enables them to see a different Olympic event than the one being broadcast over the air by the BBC.

The interactive usage by half the viewers who have the service since the opening ceremonies in Athens a week ago tops by 50 percent the previous BBC record of 4.1 million people set by this year's Wimbledon tennis tournament, the UK's public broadcaster said on Friday.

"The Olympics are perfect for interactive television because there are so many events happening at the same time," said Andrew Thompson, BBC Sport's head of new media, sports news and development. "Before we had the interactive option, hundreds of hours of footage disappeared down a black hole."

Interactive features are one of the big selling points of digital television provided by pay-TV providers BSkyB, the UK satellite service, and NTL and Telewest, the competing cable companies.

The BBC's data are only from satellite, but the service, which lets viewers switch among four extra sports, is available to digital cable subscribers, too. Users of Freeview, a popular digital service with no subscription fee, only can dial up two other events.

According to the BBC, about 80 percent of those who have pressed the "red button" on their remote controls that triggers the interactive features have used the service for more than three minutes, while 46 percent stayed on it for more than 25 minutes.

The BBC is broadcasting nearly non-stop coverage on its two flagship channels, BBC1 and BBC2, but the interactive service makes hundreds of extra hours of sports available.

In the United States, where interactive TV has not been launched widely, NBC has opted to supplement the Olympics coverage on its flagship network by showing events on sister cable channels CNBC and MSNBC. NBC is owned by General Electric Co.