Consumers Largely Ignorant About iTV Services, Says Report

The report claims that 50% of US adults have heard of iTV, which allows users to access information, buy products or play games on their TV sets, but only 11% consider themselves somewhat or very familiar with the facility. There were no differences in awareness by gender, age or geographic region but affluent households ($100,000+) are most likely to be in the know.

“There has been so much industry hype about iTV, we expected higher levels of consumer awareness,” said Ipsos research leader Lynne Bartos. “Only 11% familiarity is a surprising low percentage.”

She added: “iTV programmers and content providers still have some work to do to raise awareness levels, improve consumer understanding and get consumers excited about the features and benefits of interactive TV.”

When asked about their interest in specific iTV activities, some 26% of respondents said they appreciated the ability to control different camera angles when watching a sporting contest. Other popular activities included requesting product information or a brochure (19%) and the ability to get statistics on sports players during an event (18%).

“For the iTV activities we asked about, our findings show that the 18-34 year old male sports enthusiast is likely to be the earliest adopter,” said Bartos. “Men were twice as interested as women in the sport-related features of iTV, and significantly more likely to be interested in gaming and betting activities.”

Ipsos anticipates that interactive services will be one of the main features offered by satellite operator DirecTV now it has been acquired by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation (see Murdoch Gets Go-Ahead On US Satellite TV Ambitions).