The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences on Monday announced a new Emmy for interactive TV programming, signaling that the long-hyped but little-seen marriage of technology and TV has finally won a foothold in the industry.
Chances are good, however, that the winning enhancements won't have been seen by most TV viewers. That's because relatively few sets, cable converter boxes or satellite receivers in the U.S. are delivering that kind of interactivity today.
With that in mind, the academy decided not to reserve an Emmy statuette for interactive programmers. Instead, the winners--if there are any--will receive an Emmy plaque.
The award will recognize original interactive enhancements that are "integrally related" to a program. For example, it might be an overlay on the TV screen that offers background information on the characters, or a Web site that offers supplemental text, graphics and video.
John Leverence, the academy's vice president of awards, said interactive TV is still a work in progress. The award, he said, should be viewed as "a first step in the direction of full Emmy recognition, even as the technology is still in its infancy, still unfulfilled in terms of its promise."
Advocates of the new Emmy, which will be awarded Aug. 21 during the engineering awards presentation, said they wanted not only to recognize the creative work being done in interactive TV but also to encourage more of it.
"The mission of the television academy [includes] recognizing leadership in the advancement of television arts and sciences," said Brian Seth Hurst, a consultant active in the campaign for the award. "The point is to continue to forward the medium."
Interactive TV has been around in one form or another since the 1950s, when a CBS show, "Winky Dink and You," invited kids to help solve a cartoon character's problems by drawing on their TV screens. It has come and gone several times since then, with new technologies being abandoned in the face of high costs and low interest.
Over the last few years, cable and satellite operators have installed millions of set-top boxes capable of delivering interactive TV--if they have the right software.
The TV industry has yet to settle on which software to use, however, chopping the potential audience into smaller pieces.
Josh Bernoff, a principal analyst with Forrester Research, said the leading interactive TV services today are interactive ads, news and weather updates, video on demand and personal video recording, not program-related enhancements.
