THE box in the corner of your living room is about to be transformed. At the touch of a remote-control button, you will be able to apply for bank loans, order mobile phones and get pizzas delivered to your door.
British Sky Broadcasting’s Open television service was launched last week offering retailers access to the 1.25m Sky Digital subscribers who will be able to go shopping without leaving their sofas.
Going Places, along with high-street names such as Domino’s Pizza, Abbey National and Dixons, has realised the potential of the medium and signed up as a content provider. The multiple will go live on the channel next month.
While most retailers recognise the importance of the Internet for distributing their product, most regard interactive TV as having the biggest potential.
Analysts predict there will be 120m TVs in Europe next year, compared with 34m personal computers. Unlike the Internet, booking over the TV does not require the user to sit down at a PC . The vast majority of people have TVs in their living rooms so they can go shopping on Open without having to leave the comfort of their own armchairs.
Going Places will feature all the holidays offered through its retail outlets on Open, but will not be interactive right from the beginning.
Parent company Airtours UKLeisure Group believes people still want to talk through a holiday purchase before they make it.
UKLG director of projects Marco Trecroce explained: “We are not sure how customers are going to use the technology. We think they still want to speak to someone for advice. Other content providers will have the technology built in to immediately allow interactive buying, but there is a huge difference between spending £29 on a sweatshirt and £1,500 on a holiday.
“We can build in the interactive purchasing facility, but right now we are waiting to see from feedback which holidays people would be willing to book without making a phone call first.”
Instead, Going Places customers can fill out a preference questionnaire on screen and ask to be contacted. It will have 15 dedicated Open staff in place at its existing call centre in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne who will respond within 24hrs to information and booking requests.
“Once we see people are getting comfortable with the medium, we will respond by putting in the technology so that certain holidays will be bookable totally through the TV. It will probably be city breaks and less expensive holidays. We think it will take longer for the bigger holidays to be offered this way, because when you spend a large amount of money you want to be reassured,” Trecroce said.
The thinking at UKLG is that Open is a good bet but is still an experiment.
“It’s a new thing, not just for the consumer, but for us too,” said Trecroce. “We are just going to have to sit back and wait and see what people do with this technology.”
With 90% of the UK public still without Internet access at home, the market for people who have not yet had the experience of buying interactively is huge. Although only 1.25m people subscribe at the moment, Open will soon be offered to cable viewers and will be on every TV owner’s screen within a decade when all TVs are digital.