Here's the story. . The Interactive Cable TV Quietly Reaching Maturity by Ken Freed . . Excitement for iTV at Cable2000 inhibited by cold market realities.
Cable faces serious competition.
O ne might expect the cable industry to be thumbing its nose at the naysayers who five years ago pronounced interactive TV dead before arrival. Yet the mass market rollout this year of broadband interactive cable television services in the United States is being downplayed somewhat at Cable 2000. Cable has bided its time during the costly digital rebuild, now virtually complete in the major markets. Cable has kept mum while planning the pending retail launch of digital set-tops and cable modems. We can attribute cable reticence to the lessons from getting abandoned by investors after the hype bubble burst for interactive TV as the Internet emerged.