While providing services for operators across all platforms, interactive TV software company Ensequence hopes to strengthen its role in the satellite pay-TV industry by helping operators deploy the latest advanced interactive services, Ensequence’s top official said.

Gary Marenzi, the newly appointed president of Portland, Ore.-based Ensequence, believes there is still much growth for the company in the satellite sector. "Satellite has been the lead horse in interactivity," he said. "We have watched around the world as satellite platforms have grown and developed. Ensequence has successful stories from satellite operators such as BSkyB and Dish Network, which we can now bring around the world as examples to other satellite providers thinking of deploying interactivity. When cable comes calling with a better back channel than satellite, satellite has to develop a similar functionality. There are a lot of challenges for satellite, but if they market their products the right way and align with the right partners, they can successfully compete with cable, IPTV or with anybody. I am very bullish about the prospects for the satellite players."

Helping to lead the way in turning interactive services into a profitable venture are advertising agencies, Marenzi said. "The advertising agencies have invested a lot of money in television and are not about to turn their back on TV advertising… For example, companies like Sky are not going to go broadband and mobile and forget about TV. To compete in that marketplace, they have to add elements that give people a reason to put down their money and pay a subscription fee every month and also break through the clutter on the channels and shows."

A Key Battleground

With competition among the various TV platforms growing more intense, the onus will be on direct-to-home players to keep pace with their terrestrial rivals terms of interactive services.

"There is going to be a bigger move to broadband over the next 12 months," Marenzi said. "There is also going to be a push back from cable and satellite to protect their turf, which we have already begun to see. A lot of companies running with old media are touting their benefits over those with new media. Old media is a push technology – someone else schedules the programming for you. Adding interactivity to push technology is something that we are going to see a lot of.

"On broadband, people have come to expect to interact with content. Other people are going to dig down deep, but some people are going to come back to old media. My prediction over the next 12 months is that old media is going to take a stand and bring people back."

Latest Innovations

Ensequence software and services have found homes on platforms that serve more than 20 million digital homes around the globe, including delivering content to set-top boxes, personal computers and mobile devices. Along with BSkyB and Dish, other satellite operators such as Sky Italia and Australia’s Foxtel are implementing more interactive services, and Marenzi is targeting further international expansion.

"It is happening now already," he said. "We are deploying in Italy already. We have been working with several platforms there and major brands in Italy, so a number of interactive applications will be launching there soon. At IBC recently, we had serious discussions with operators in Germany and we are starting to do some things in France. Australia has been knocking on our door for a while. There is now a lot more action in non-U.K., non-U.S. markets."

To help meet these goals, Ensequence continues to develop more advanced interactive solutions, Marenzi said. "We are working on things such as adding video, shopping enhancements, experiences for television shows or commercials," he said. "The basic ones are we are giving information and making the show more interesting by using video and cutting the screen in different fashions and allowing the viewer to manipulate the icons so they see the data and information and video that they want on screen. So you have things like shopping and polling. These are the basic ones that people talk about. So it is about voting and responding. There is a lot of residual excitement to be brought about through interactivity. There can be different screen set-ups, to different mosaics. I think you will see a revolution over the next 12 months of the graphic intensity of what interactivity will be."

Of course, these interactive advancements also will help satellite-TV competitors, so it will be up to the direct-to-home operators to remain innovative with their offerings as more operators embrace the service. "Although there are still several markets that haven’t yet included interactivity as part of their strategy, it is definitely gaining momentum in several parts of world," Marenzi said. "Interactivity is not for everyone until deployments are completely widespread around the world. There will still be some people holding back, [but] it is worth the costs and efforts."

Contact, Gary Marenzi, Ensequence, Tel: 001 503 416 3800