Pushing the button : a quantitative analysis of red button television content in the UK

• Main Author: Fox, Andrew
• Published: Cardiff University 2014
• Subjects: 384.55; PN1990 Broadcasting
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.633553

The technological, sociological and cultural position of television, as a method of delivering content, has been the subject of much academic debate in the past twenty years. Perceived threats to television have emerged through the convergence of technologies, which has enabled traditional media forms to take on the characteristics of each other. As a result there is no such thing as a dominant communications medium in the 21st Century, as shared technological characteristics mean that the user can access a multitude of content through one single device. Some believe that television is on the wane, leading to dire predictions of the ‘death’ of television. For others, if television is to survive and develop as a communications medium, it needs to take on one element of convergence by becoming more interactive. There is a substantial amount of academic work which suggests how television can achieve this and what the content provided will do. However, these are merely suggestions, as there is no research which looks at what interactive content actually is. The assumption for scholars, who believe that interactive television is a viable format, is that it is inevitable that interactivity will become an everyday element of television use. Ideas as to how this can be achieved have been put forward but have not been followed up. This research aims to fill that empirical gap and is informed not by what could be but what is. It is clear that digital television has allowed for an additional stream of information to be accessed, through the red button on the remote control. This content provides a variety of options for the viewer, however, the key question, which this research is addressing, is how much of it is interactive? Additional research is now needed to establish just how much of this content exists, what the red button allows the audience member to do and how. Therefore it is necessary to measure and quantify the amount of red button content across a sample of channels, which represent the three types of broadcasting comprising the British broadcasting landscape; public service (the BBC), commercial (ITV) and subscription (Sky).