Experiments in inhabited TV

INTRODUCTION Inhabited TV involves the public deployment of collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) so that on-line audiences can participate in TV shows within shared virtual worlds. This extends traditional broadcast TV and more recent interactive TV by enabling social interaction among participants and by offering them new forms of control over narrative structure (e.g., navigation within a virtual world) and greater interaction with content (e.g., direct manipulation of props and sets). Inhabited TV also builds on recent research into CVEs as social environments, including experiments with Internet-based virtual worlds [2] and the development of more scaleable research platforms. This involves more explicitly focusing on issues of production, management, format and participation arising from the staging of events within virtual worlds. The potential size of Inhabited TV audiences also challenges the scaleability of CVEs.