Interactive Children's Television

This article describes interactive television designed for children based on the combined work of the Fraunhofer Institute for Media Communication IMK, the Disney Channel, and other partners. At the annual American Film Institute workshop, these groups presented an interactive concept for the “Kim Possible” cartoon series as a way to demonstrate increased children’s involvement through interactive television. While there are different views as to whether or not television is harmful to children, according to this article, one certainty is that television becomes more attractive to young viewers when they have the possibility of interacting more.

The concept of the prototype episode is described as "a digital trading card game" which represent characters in the stories. Using a remote control, a child can collect the cards during the show and exchange them with other children using the set-top-box return channel. A number of incentives to collect the cards are included such as "bonus" episodes of the series via video on demand, which enables access to online games. From the industry perspective, the major incentive for The Disney Channel is to increase viewer loyalty, according to Thomas Tikwinski of the IMK Interactive TV Competence Center.

This article makes reference to the industry magazine Media Perspektiven which claims that German children spend an average of 100 minutes a day watching television. The article suggests that children’s interactive programmes could be more attractive based on the perceived problems associated with so much time spent in front of the television.

The article describes that progress in this form of entertainment is being held back by the lack of a "universal, standard technical platform.”