Internet TV has become so popular that some European broadcasters want to put it on TV — the one in the living room.
Within several months, viewers in Germany with specially equipped TVs may be able to watch public broadcasters’ Internet TV services, which let users catch up on the shows of the previous week, whenever they choose, via their computers.
In the UK, the BBC and several partners are working on a more ambitious project to bring what is called catch-up TV and a variety of other programming and interactive services to TV sets as soon as next year.
Why would viewers, who can already get dozens of channels over the air, via cable or satellite or through their telephone lines, need yet another way to watch TV?
Catch-up services, like the iPlayer of the BBC in the UK and Hulu in the US, have attracted millions of users on the Internet, allowing them to fit TV viewing into busy schedules. But they have been available only on computers.
The new technology, called hybrid television because it uses over-the-air transmission as well as broadband connections, would do more.
Supporters of the technology say it will open up possibilities like those enabled by the iPhone from Apple, which allows independent developers to create customized applications.
Imagine watching a cooking program that ended with a page of links to similar, archived ones, for example, or to the Web sites of online retailers selling the ingredients.
“This crosses the Rubicon,” said Gavin Patterson, chief executive of the retail division of BT, the British telecommunications company, which has joined the BBC and two other broadcasters, ITV and Five, in the hybrid TV enterprise called Project Canvas.
“It is truly the moment when the Internet and the television come together,” he said.
There are already plenty of ways to watch television shows on a computer and rudimentary Internet-enabled TVs have been on the market for several years. But generally, these options allow only separate Web surfing or TV viewing.
Many broadcasters have been wary of embracing the Internet for fear of cannibalizing their audiences and undermining more lucrative TV advertising.
But now, with TV ad revenue plunging anyway during the recession, some broadcasters are reconsidering.
And even European public television providers, which are less reliant on advertising — or, in the case of the BBC, entirely free of it — worry about how they will maintain audiences when other media options are proliferating.
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