Icareus

Washington, D.C., April 1st, 2008 – The time for INTERACTIVE or PARTICIPATION TELEVISION has arrived in America, via Finland. INTERNATIONAL INVESTOR, a weekly, business program produced out of Washington, D.C., announced that it will now become truly “interactive” with its audience, enabling viewers to respond to survey questions and comment on interviews instantaneously, through text messaging from their cell phones, and soon from their TV’s remote control device, perhaps the first U.S. television program to do so.

“The prospects for our television program to relate directly to our viewers is tremendous,” exclaims the program’s founder and producer, Robert Sherretta.  “With this unique technology, for the first time, audience members will be able to respond directly to what they see on the television, and see their comments and votes recorded on the screen, almost instantaneously.  This will enable us to not only explore what our viewers think, but assimilate their views and opinions and enable us to respond back to them, to cultivate our relationship with them,” said Mr. Sherretta.

INTERNATIONAL INVESTOR, a television program focusing on the world economies and financial markets, has teamed up with ICAREUS ENTERTAINMENT SOLUTIONS (IES) of Helsinki, which is providing the technology enabling the audience participation. With its “Turnkey” Interactive Television Technologies, this international company, with an impressive list of major European television channels as references, is a proven partner for many major broadcasters in Europe and Scandinavia.

We like to call it “PARTICIPATION TELEVISION”, reflects ICAREUS founder and CEO Toni Leiponen.  “The Participation TV experience encourages viewers to respond, and dramatically turns television audiences into interactive communities. Inter-Active transactions make all the difference between a passive television viewer, and a highly motivated inter-active media user, far more responsive to both programming and advertising,” claims Mr. Leiponen.

“It is encouraging to see how many companies are interested in finding new business models and opportunities in interactive mobile TV” says Toni Leiponen, Managing Director of Icareus and continues: “I am convinced that this group of professional companies participating our Interactive Mobile TV –project will carry out remarkable results.”

But the most exciting prospects for this television program might be in identifying exactly who their viewers are, and the ability to contact them directly, reports Mr. Sherretta.  “We already know from our very active website, and e-mails that we have a very powerful, well-to-do and international audience watching our weekly ½ hour report, but now we will be able to correspond with them, inviting them to participate in a wide variety of research and activities.  This offers exciting prospects for us, and our advertisers,” offered Mr. Sherretta.