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To: DiViT who wrote (43662)	8/4/1999 1:52:00 PM
From: Stoctrash	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 50808

OT: dailynews.yahoo.com

To: DiViT who wrote (43662)	8/5/1999 10:04:00 AM
From: BillyG	Respond to of 50808

Interactive TV To Be $20 Bil Market By 2004 - Report By Laura Randall, Newsbytes CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, 04 Aug 1999, 4:19 PM CST Potatoes, hold onto your couches! Interactive television will soon explode as a powerful e-commerce gold mine, generating $20 billion in revenues over the next five years and matching the Internet in advertising force, according to a new report by Forrester Research. In its first study of the emerging interactive TV market, the independent research firm found that it will experience steady-to-exponential growth led by electronic program guides, enhanced TV broadcasts that enable viewer interaction and TV-based Internet access. By 2004, Forrester estimates interactive TV will generate $11 billion in advertising, $7 billion in commerce and $2 billion in subscription revenues. "It is an irresistible opportunity. It is the opportunity to reach 20, 30 and 40 million people multiple times a day. There's nothing else that can do that," said Josh Bernoff, principal analyst for television research at Forrester and the author of the report. The report, titled "Interactive TV Cash Flows," is based on interviews with officials of more than 60 firms including broadcast and cable networks, satellite and cable operators, ad agencies, producers and technology vendors. More than one-third of the companies surveyed told Forrester they have interactive television plans underway. Reaping the majority of the revenues will be cable and satellite operators and technology vendors like Wink, Liberate, Microsoft and America Online, Bernoff told Newsbytes. The biggest losers in the picture are the broadcast networks, which will continue to lose revenue and ratings to interactive TV, the analyst said. Interactive e-commerce concerns like B3TV - an Internet start-up that this week unveiled a technology that lets TV viewers order pizza via their set-top boxes - will reap benefits in the short term, but their pay-per-click revenue plans aren't likely to stand up to business models in the long run, Bernoff said. Rather, he said, they're likely to be paid a set fee for setting up the infrastructure. Leading the interactive TV market will be electronic program guides, which Forrester expects to grow from about 25 million users now to 55 million in five years. Enhanced broadcasts that offer interactive programming like play-along game shows and pizza ordering will build more slowly, according to Bernoff, growing from about 1 million homes to 24 million by 2004. Newsbytes notes that the buzz about the potential gold mine of the interactive television market has been intense, but predictions of revenues and factors that will drive it vary widely. A recent report on interactive TV by the research firm Frost & Sullivan put its potential revenue take in 2006 at $5.3 billion. Bernoff called the $20 billion forecast "a pretty reasonable estimate." He said Forrester waited until they could tap into an adequate number of players and data about the interactive TV market before embarking on the study. Reported by Newsbytes.com, newsbytes.com