From passive consumption to active participation, interactivity is an inevitable extension of television writes William Cooper.

If you like television, you’ll love interactive television. Just add a red button for instant interaction. Or so we are led to believe.

Interactive television is not a specific technology or industry, but a way of thinking. Programme-makers need to think outside the set-top box. This means looking at viewers as individual media consumers, not in terms of a massive, passive audience.

Interactive television is simply an extended dimension of the medium, like colour, stereo or widescreen, and will eventually become seamlessly incorporated as an integral element of mainstream production. One day we will take it for granted. The secret is that interactive television is just like television - only more so.

Dr William Cooper is the founder of informitv.com and former head of interactive for BBC Broadcast.

The full text of this article first appeared in Broadcast 4 June 2004 and is available at: http://informitv.com/editorial/2004/06/justliketv/