"Significant numbers of BT's 23 million residential customers could be linked to the service (interactive TV) by 1995, which would severely dent terrestrial viewing figures."
Media International, February 1994.
"It’s like going into a restaurant, having the chef point to the ingredients and saying: ‘Here they are, now cook the meal yourself.’ Is that what audiences want? TV audiences want to stay passive."
Helmut Thoma, Managing Director, RTL Plus GmbH, 1995
"Interactive TV is like having a baby - easier to conceive than deliver"
John Enser, media lawyer, 1995
"TV is, at bottom, a passive experience - which is its beauty"
Viacom spokesman, 1995
"The digital satellite product has been the hottest consumer electronics launch in the history of the US, and will attract similar response here [the UK]."
Sam Chisholm, Chief Executive, British Sky Broadcasting, 1996
"Digital TV will bring an era of high value, interactive multimedia services, bringing substantial benefits to the UK economy. Consumers will be able to call down special-interest programmes, take out electronic season tickets to follow their home football team, conduct home shopping, even alter camera angles to track a favourite star."
Ian Taylor, Minister for Science and Technology, December 1996
"There is no solution in sight. I am very pessimistic about the digital market."
Bernd Kundrun, Chief Executive, Premiere (German digital TV station), February 1997
"It is still going to be quite a while before we have interactive digital TV."
Bill Gates, Chairman and CEO, Microsoft, March 1997
"There are some markets that need Goliaths to open them up, not Davids."
Sam Chisholm, Chief Executive, BSkyB, (commenting on digital TV), May 1997
"The market for Web-enabled televisions is vanishingly small."
Josh Bernoff, Forrester Research, 1997
"We are going to lead the world in this UK operation…it is the template for everywhere else."
Sam Chisholm, Chief Executive, BSkyB (on the launch of BIB), May 1997
"Television is a more natural environment for electronic commerce than the Internet because the mass market is already familiar with it."
Stuart Ross, Marketing Development Manager, Boots, May 1997
"This new venture will open up the information age to the television viewer, not just the PC user"
Rupert Gavin, Multimedia Services Director, BT (on the launch of BIB), May 1997
"It's going to be difficult in two to three years time to spot the difference between the Web and television."
David Docherty, Deputy Director of Television, BBC, September 1997
"People using their TVs are sitting ten feet away, they are not going to be doing a whole lot of interacting, they just want to see stuff coming down at them."
Marc Andreessen, Netscape, January 1998
"The sort of application I foresee is someone watching a soccer match between, say, the US and Mexico, and a message pops up offering them the chance to buy the Mexico strip. You could also chat with friends at the bottom of the screen during the game. Or if you were watching Seinfeld, for example, you could be automatically sent tot he Seinfeld chat room at the end of the show. The advertiser who appeared during the TV show would also appear in the chat room."
Phil Monego, President, NetChannel, US, April 1998
"If you want to order an extra phone line, all you'll have to do is point and click. If you want to watch the Dennis Rodman/Karl Malone wrestling match, watch it free tonight on AT&T - point and click and you're an AT&T long-distance customer."
John Malone, Chairman, Tele-Communications Inc., June 1998
"Digital TV has destroyed the 'convergence theory'. For year's now, the word convergence has gone side-by-side with digital, a convenient way of explaining how TVs and PCs will get married and live happily ever after. Well, I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but there's been a divorce. It's increasingly clear that people's use of the TV and the PC are hugely different experiences. TV will continue to be the dominant medium for lean-back leisure rather than lean-forward interaction."
Elisabeth Murdoch, General Manager, Sky Television, UK, August 1998
"We don't think people want to watch the Internet over their television, we think they want to watch television over their television. We believe in entertainment and the power of television."
Mark Booth, Chief Executive, British Sky Broadcasting, UK, September 1998
"You go to your TV set when you want to turn your brain off. You go to your computer when you want to turn your brain on."
Steve Jobs, CEO, Apple Computer Inc., US, October 1998
"I don't think we'll ever see a family huddled round the TV surfing the net."
Krista Johnson, Head of Interactive Sales & Marketing, Flextech Interactive, UK, January 1999
"We don’t think Internet TV is going anywhere"
Sky Digital spokesman, UK, May 1999
"Generally we do not believe this (television) is the right medium for grocery home shopping"
James Millar, Food Ferry, UK, November 1999
"At the moment it can be cumbersome and slow to get around and buy things on the internet. When you just have to switch on your TV I think it's going to be huge."
Jan Sheperdson, Brand Director, Top Shop, UK, February 2000
