Treatments of interactive television (ITV) in the popular press could easily lead readers to think that it is an entirely new phenomenon or, indeed, that it has yet to arrive on the scene.
However, ITV has been tested in the marketplace under various guises in each decade since the
1950s. Our lack of historical perspective is unfortunate because there are many clues in the history of interactive television trials and services about what consumers want from ITV along with many lessons about how to overcome technological and marketplace obstacles.