LONDON — More iTV news, as beeb.com launches its Holiday Shopping Guide on Telewest’s interactive TV platform
BBC Worldwide’s online shopping portal has been successful in its initial move on to Telewest’s iTV platform, having garnered over ten thousand unique users and 100,000 page impressions since it was initially rolled out three weeks ago.
The service transfers beeb.com’s popular Holiday Shopping Guide – where consumers can browse for travel information and book online – to iTV, where Telewest Active Digital can take advantage of it. It certainly seems a sensible step for a TV cross-over site to cross back over again and become available through interactive TV, a move which beeb.com has already started with sites such as Radio Times already available on iTV through ntl, ONdigital and Cable & Wireless, albeit not for online shopping. A beeb.com spokesperson commented that these are likely to be upgraded for online shopping in the near future.
Patrick Hannon, beeb Ventures’ chief commercial officer, remarked on the lauch, “Holiday is the first of beeb’s Shopping Guides to be offered via the television through Telewest’s interactive service, and is proving very popular. We’re now looking to build on this success, by further developing the Holiday site, and by adding more of beeb.com’s branded Shopping Guides to the service”.
Telewest provides 1.7 million UK households with TV and Internet services, and made over 370,000 digital sales during the last financial year, suggesting that iTV is likely to be a growing online force in the future. Beeb.com is not the only well-known name to be available through Telewest, with over 150 high street brands – including Argos, Woolworths and WHSmith – already represented online.
