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Jim Barthold
Interactive TV continued to spread its wings - and its presence - last week as Wink Communications launched in 1 million DirecTV satellite homes and OpenTV announced its OpenTV Broadband initiative.
For Wink, last week's launch was the official beginning of something that's been in the works nearly two years when Wink first announced a partnership with DirecTV. As part of that partnership, DirecTV's lead supplier, Thomson Consumer Electronics, started building Wink-enabled satellite boxes, and "they have shipped, through Sept. 30, over 3 million into retail," reports Allan Thygesen, Wink's EVP-sales and business development.
"Between now and the end of October, we'll turn on well over a million of those in subscriber homes across the country, (and) by the end of the year we'll be in about 2 million DirecTV homes with the Wink service," he says.
This, Thygesen says, "is the first time that interactive television has reached a critical milestone in terms of scope and size."
OpenTV's initiative combines its broadcast interactive TV competence with advanced broadband ITV and Web technologies obtained through its merger with Spyglass.
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