Interactive TV Test Hits New Stations

The NY Times looks at Bachchannel Media and its interactive TV test in New England, which we reported on in early May. As we’d written, WJAR Providence and WMUR Manchester (NH) are following WCVB Boston in the test, which sees users click their remotes for more information on things they’re seeing on the screen. Horizon Media has some ads involved in the trial. 

Of course, with all the non-starting interactive TV efforts in the past, no one’s overly bullish on Backchannel Media (except, of course, co-CEO Michael Kokernak, who falls somewhere between a dynamo and a loose cannon…in a good way). 

WJAR’s Lisa Churchville tells the Times:

“We know people love their televisions and we know people love their computers. Connecting them makes an awful lot of sense, but it has never come to fruition in an easy, manageable way.”

What Ms. Churchville said she found appealing about the Backchannel system was that “the technology is much less complex for the television station and the user.”