New on-demand interactive weather service launches on Bell ExpressVu

Interactive television has grown in fits and starts since the first experiments in the 1970s, but a new partnership between Bell ExpressVu and Pelmorex Media Inc. aims to broaden its appeal by harnessing the power of on-demand weather information. In a country like Canada, where the weather can shift dramatically in just a few hours, getting timely information out to subscribers is paramount, says Shawn Omstead, director of video consumer services development at Bell Canada. "If you lived in California it might be a little boring, but in Toronto and Ottawa as the seasons change the weather changes ," he says. The new service also allows ExpressVu to compete with cable operators, who have been offering a localized weather service via Pelmorex’s The Weather Network and MétéoMédia through their network of local BDU nodes. However, says Omstead, "I think the big advantage that we offer here is the interactive mode."The new Weather Network Interactive and MétéoMédia Interactive services each operate in two modes: scheduled and interactive. In the former instance, location-specific weather information is "pushed" to the viewer at regular intervals using the bandwidth of the national televised feed, and is displayed in an L-bar surrounding the main national programming. The L-bar displays weather conditions in text and other alphanumeric formats. In interactive mode, the main national program feed is replaced by a full-screen menu, which allows users to select custom data such as Environment Canada alerts, ski conditions and pollen counts for any one of 200 Canadian cities or towns, then retrieve that data in real-time. While the programming and data originates at the Pelmorex data centre in Mississauga ON, Bell ExpressVu is handling "the bandwidth and the operational support elements of this relationship," Omstead says. Pelmorex also wrote the application that makes all the interactivity possible, he adds. Omstead says that while satellite TV providers such as the UK’s BSkyB and EchoStar Satellite LLC’s Dish Network in the US have proved the value of interactive services, Canada is somewhat behind the pace set in other jurisdictions. Nonetheless, he adds, such services figure prominently in Bell’s business plan. "It continues to be a big focus of our moving-forward strategy," Omstead says. Proof of that committment lies in the current availability of two full-time services in the ExpressVu satelite universe – TSN Extra and CBC News Plus. As well, interactive applications are offered for seasonal sporting events such as the NFL and NHL seasons and the Olympics. The two new services are available to Bell ExpressVu customers using the 3100, 3200, 4100, 5100, 5200, 5800, 5900 and 61000-series receivers, which Omstead says makes it available to more than one million of the satellite provider’s 1.7 million customers. For those who can’t access such interactive programming, it’s a matter of obsolete hardware, Omstead says. "The boxes that are very old and have been in the market for a very long time, like the original boxes that we delivered to the market back in 1997, 1998, they wouldn’t be able to run these," he says.

New on-demand interactive weather service launches on Bell ExpressVu

Broadcast | June 5, 2006

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