'Interactive TV' Raises Its Head. Again.

I got my first advertising job in 1973, when cable TV was only in rural areas where an on-air signal couldn't reach. "CATV," now recognized as "Cable TV," was actually an acronym for "Community Antenna Television," and wasn't taken too seriously as a main-stream advertising medium.

Nonetheless, there was much speculation that, when cable came to the cities, it would would be a whole new game. The game was a little late in starting, however.

By the 80s, cable channels - especially MTV and CNN - made ad agencies take notice. When broadcasting met the computer age in the 90s, more of the promise of the medium came to life and broadcasters and ad people started to talk about the distant dream of "interactive television."

Now with all TV digitized in the US, interactive TV is, at least technically, a reality. See the story on this morning's MediaPost TV Board.