Few who have endured a public television pledge drive would object to a world in which they could escape the rattling tin cup and go straight to programming.
A Broomfield-based company has developed technology that could potentially do that through cable-TV systems, but many obstacles remain.
Vidiom Systems designed a pair of prototype interactive-TV software packages for PBS stations in 2003.
Here’s how one of them, tested by KQED in San Francisco, would work: A viewer would use a cable-TV remote control to make a pledge. As the pledge drive continued, the donor could switch to a special channel with PBS programming but without the endless pleas for money that mark the fundraising drives. Nondonor viewers would be stuck with the pledge drive.
“I’d love it,” said Denver resident Judy Epstein, who watches public television every day and donates regularly.
Pledge drives, she said, are “a terrible intrusion. It seems to go on indefinitely, and then you turn around and there is another fund drive.”
But the head of the Media Access Project, a public-interest law firm, said such a technology would be antithetical to PBS’s mission.
“It penalizes people who are unable to afford or otherwise choose not to make contributions,” said Andrew Jay Schwartzman, MAP’s president and chief executive.
“It comes close to a subscription television service,” he added.
A spokesman for Rocky Mountain PBS said the network is unaware of the interactive-TV experiments but is interested in any idea that would help retain viewers and raise funds.
“The problem with pledge drives is you have a lot of loyal viewers and supporters who don’t want to see the schedule interrupted,” said Randy Blauvelt, a spokesman for Rocky Mountain PBS.
“We lose some of them for a while, and it takes a while to get them back.”
In Los Angeles, the PBS broadcaster KCET tested Vidiom interactive software in house. By using their cable-TV remote controls, viewers would be able to donate, buy DVDs of the shows they were watching, find out about local events and take other actions.
If KCET or other PBS stations were to raise enough money from such a system, it could eliminate the need for fund drives, said Jackie Kain, vice president of new media for KCET.
A variety of companies, including cable- and satellite-TV providers, are deploying and testing interactive-TV technologies for purposes that include video on demand and home shopping.
Vidiom’s interactive software would require further development to become fully operational, said Jeff Bonin, Vidiom’s director of product management.
In addition, tests at the San Francisco and Los Angeles stations didn’t include the participation of cable-TV systems, which would be necessary before the dream can become reality, said Kurt Mendelsohn, creative services director at KQED.
Comcast Corp. is the dominant cable provider in San Francisco and Denver. KQED approached Comcast about the possibilities.
“When they brought that to our attention, we thought it was very forward-looking, but it was too advanced for our back office,” said Andrew Johnson, a Comcast spokesman in the Bay Area.
One difficulty would be combining PBS membership rolls with Comcast customer lists, both of which are constantly changing. Such coordination would be necessary to ensure that donors could get nonpledge-drive programming through their cable-TV service.
Though Comcast passed on a chance to pursue the idea, the company remains interested.
“We believe in the future this will be part of the services we are able to offer our customers,” Johnson said.
Staff writer Tom McGhee can be reached at 303-820-1671 or tmcghee@denverpost.com.
