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Interactive television usage and applications: the Portuguese case-study ☆

Abstract This paper depicts the Portuguese interactive television (iTV) market focusing on the novel applications produced in that market between the years 2001 and 2003. Particular focus is given to two applications, “Noites Interactivas” and “VEMiTV-PANDA”, not only from a technological point of view, but also from the user interaction point of view. These two examples are used to illustrate the challenges facing iTV services technological deployment and commercial development. The paper ends by summarising the lessons taken from the service deployment in Portugal and showing who is ahead in the everlasting balance between technology and content.

Using digital interactive television to promote healthcare and wellness inclusive services

The potential of digital interactive television (iDTV) to promote original services, formats and contents that can be relevant to support personal health care and wellness of individuals, namely elderly people, has not been fully explored yet in the past. Therefore, in a context of rapid change of the technological resources, in which the distribution and presentation of content comes associated to new platforms (such as digital terrestrial TV and IPTV), it is important to identify the configurations that are being developed for interactive digital TV (iDTV) that may result in relevant outcomes within the field of healthcare and wellness, with the aim of offering complementarity to the existing services and contents made available today via the traditional means and media. This article describes and discusses the preliminary results of the first part of the research project iDTV-HEALTH: Inclusive services to promote health and wellness via digital interactive television. These first results suggest that iDTV solutions may represent a real contribution to bring healthcare and wellness to the target population, namely as a supplement to health services provision.

Using digital interactive television for the promotion of health and wellness

Digital interactive television (iDTV) is often seen as a platform with great potential to deliver health and wellness content and services directly to people. Despite the advantages of e-Health, public engagement with such services is still limited. Our research assumes that health literacy plays a key role on users’ engagement with these kinds of services and we postulate that it is one of the main predictors of users’ attitudes and behaviours towards iDTV health and wellness services. Our main goal was to identify and describe the factors that limit the efficiency of e-Health interventions and the potential depicted in this context by specific technologies – i.e. iDTV. The proposed research design adopts a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods and techniques. The studies were conducted in a southern European country – Portugal – between 2012 and 2013. We found that 51.7% of the respondents showed high probability (+50%) of having limited health literacy (low literacy) and they are more likely to be men/women with an average age of 49.81, fourth grade or less, belonging to status group D/E and showing less interest and less perception of the utility of e-Health interventions. The groups that depict limited e-Health literacy are also the ones least interested in digital TV services related to health and wellness. Following this, we propose that in order for people to realize the actual benefits of using these applications, it is essential to tailor both content and services in accordance with the depicted level of e-Health literacy.

Drivers and barriers to the adoption of the digital television in portugal: the perspectives of the tv viewers and other main stakeholders

The main goal of the ADOPT-DTV project is to understand what are the most significant factors for the adoption of digital TV by the Portuguese population in the switchover context. On the 26th of April 2012, the analogue terrestrial television switchoff is planned to occur in Portugal, according to the schedule published by the national telecommunication regulator Anacom. Digital terrestrial TV was launched in the country in April 2009, turning Portugal into one of the countries with the most ambitious schedule - or risky, depending on the perspective - for the full transition from analogue to digital terrestrial television. We will start by presenting the objectives, theoretical framework and research design of the ADOPT-DTV project. Next, we will present the first results of the project focused on the barriers and drivers for the adoption of digital TV from two of the empirical studies which integrate it, namely, the quantitative inquiry applied to a representative sample of the Portuguese population and interviews with the main stakeholders in the digital TV area in Portugal. The perspectives of the television viewers are compared with other main stakeholders in this process. A brief discussion of these results and a brief enumeration of the next steps for the project will conclude this paper.