{"id":3734,"date":"2026-08-18T21:13:44","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T21:13:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev-testinglink.com\/projects\/civilorg\/?post_type=pew-projects&#038;p=3734"},"modified":"2026-08-22T23:03:29","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T23:03:29","slug":"webtv-election-project-madison-wi-2000-partners","status":"publish","type":"pew-projects","link":"https:\/\/dev-testinglink.com\/projects\/civilorg\/pew-projects\/webtv-election-project-madison-wi-2000-partners\/","title":{"rendered":"WebTV Election Project, Madison, WI 2000  Partners:"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica, sans-serif, arial;\">Wisconsin Public Television<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica, sans-serif, arial;\">The project experimented with ways to use Interactive Television (ITV) to enhance election coverage. ITV combines television viewing and Internet browsing on a standard TV screen through the use of a set-top WebTV unit and remote. Though the technology was still very new and not widely used, Wisconsin Public Television (WPT) believed it was a growing trend that would soon be an industry standard.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica, sans-serif, arial;\">Using the technology in the 2000 election helped the network develop several successful strategies for adding content to its coverage without unduly distracting from the television broadcast. A toolbar superimposed on broadcasts allowed WebTV viewers, using their remotes, to link to candidate bios, descriptions of various election races and issues being discussed. They could even email the show&#8217;s producers directly, take a poll or view poll results. WPT used focus group sessions after broadcasts to get user input into how to make the interactive tools better and easier to use.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica, sans-serif, arial;\">By the night of the general election in November, WPT was able to coordinate its own ITV links with the nationally broadcast NewsHour&#8217;s ITV links, to give Wisconsin WebTV users access to continuously updated national results from the NewsHour and continuously updated statewide results from WPT. This type of local\/national interactive TV partnership was unprecedented.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica, sans-serif, arial;\"><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #0033cc; font-family: helvetica, sans-serif, arial;\"><strong>Contact:<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica, sans-serif, arial;\">Kathy Bissen<br \/>\nExec. Prod, News &amp; Public Affairs<br \/>\nWisconsin Public Television<br \/>\n821 University Ave.<br \/>\nMadison, WI 53706<br \/>\nPhone: (608) 263-8496<br \/>\nEmail:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20060927083919\/mailto:bissen@wpt.org\">bissen@wpt.org<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"pew-categories":[144,181],"class_list":["post-3734","pew-projects","type-pew-projects","status-publish","hentry","pew-categories-144","pew-categories-wisconsin"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev-testinglink.com\/projects\/civilorg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pew-projects\/3734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev-testinglink.com\/projects\/civilorg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pew-projects"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev-testinglink.com\/projects\/civilorg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/pew-projects"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev-testinglink.com\/projects\/civilorg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"pew-categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev-testinglink.com\/projects\/civilorg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pew-categories?post=3734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}