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K.C. NEEL
Nickelodeon and Nick. com have created their first interactive TV/online game that will allow kids to play on their computers as they watch Nickelodeon shows.
BubbleCast debuted Feb. 1 during Nickelodeon's signature show Rugrats. To play BubbleCast, kids tune into Nickelodeon's Slime Time Live programming slot during weekday afternoons, where host Dave Aizer asks them to log onto a special BubbleCast area of Nick.com. Once logged on, kids enter a virtual room with up to seven other competitors. While kids watch Rugrats, the computer prompts them with a "bubbling sound" and asks "live" questions in real-time about what's happening on the TV show. At the end of the game, the names of the top 20 BubbleCast winners are broadcast on Slime Time Live.
"We know today's kids multi-task, and we are just creating a connection between the two media to make it more fun," says Cyma Zarghami, Nickelodeon's EVP-GM.
"As the home base on the Web for kids, Nick.com connects kids to their favorite Nick characters," adds Mike Skagerlind, Nick.com's GM. "BubbleCast is the next phase in Nickelodeon's multimedia convergence programming strategy that will continue to offer kids the best in interactive entertainment."
Nickelodeon and Nick.com created BubbleCast to keep pace with the growing demands of kids for converging technologies that are fun and to add a new dimension to existing Nickelodeon hit shows such as Rugrats, Zarghami and Skagerlind say.
Sixty-nine percent of households with kids ages 2-13 have a home computer, according to a 1999 study conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Moreover, 24 million households have cable TV and an Internet computer in the same room, according to an MTV Networks Leisure Time Study conducted in 1999. More than 25 million kids log on to Nick.com each year, Skagerlind says.
HBO is taking a different tack when it comes to interactivity with the debut of On the Record with Bob Costas.
Immediately following the show, which premieres Feb. 14, HBO will encourage viewers to go to their PCs to interact with Costas and his guests.
The Internet show will include a fully interactive round table discussion, real-time opinion polls and a sports trivia game, all integrated into a live discussion among Costas and his guests. GoldPocket Interactive (GPI) is powering the interactive segment of the show. Participants will be able to ask Costas and his guests questions and respond to statements and questions asked by Costas.
On the Record's 45-minute video portion is followed by the 15-minute Internet segment, says Sara Cotsen, HBO's VP-Interactive Ventures Group. The idea is to draw Internet users to the TV and vice versa.
HBO has been working to draw Internet users to its network for some time.
"This show is designed to be integral with the Internet," she says. "But they can be done separately. The idea is to lure people to sign up for the network. They see a snapshot of what they could be seeing a whole lot more of if they could watch the show."
HBO is relying on GPI's proprietary EventMatrix technology, which enables millions of Internet users to interact with rich media content and each other, regardless of the speed with which they connect to the Internet.
ACTV TEAMS WITH AEROCAST ACTV and Aerocast, a new broadband streaming media services company backed by Motorola and Liberty Media, formed an alliance that will leverage ACTV's technologies and expertise in creating interactive TV programming and enhanced media content with Aerocast's end-to-end platform for delivering broadband streaming video across the Internet. The companies will initially focus on delivering entertainment-quality streaming video-on-demand, in conjunction with ACTV's enhanced media programming technologies, to U.S. broadband customers during a trial deployment of the Aerocast service.
ENRON GETS PROTECTION Enron Broadband Services licensed Macrovision's pay-per-view copy protection technology for use in delivering broadband content through Blockbuster Entertainment's On-Demand service. Macrovision's PPV copy protection technology allows consumers to view, but not record, programs that are copy-protected at the direction of system operators or program suppliers. The technology is designed to deter unauthorized home taping of programs distributed via digital set-tops, which in turn, minimizes cannibalization of copyright owners' content.
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