Barry Diller, the chairman of the group that controls Home Shopping Network and a number of online properties including Expedia and Ticketmaster, says he plans to take advantage of “the coming revolution in true interactive television”.
The chairman and chief executive of IAC/InterActiveCorp says the company will continue to compete aggressively to take share and will focus on existing interactive platforms and interactive television.
IAC/InteractiveCorp, formerly USA Networks, formerly HSN, now controls online businesses including Expedia and a number of other online travel sites.
In December, IAC announced that the company was splitting off its travel division under the Expedia name.
Barry Diller told analysts that the companies would be adding services to leverage their assets, both through internal development and acquisition, to “take advantage of existing platforms as well as the coming revolution in true interactive television.”
He said that this would include “adding interactive capability on HSN later this year.” This he said would be “Fully interactive TV” in addition to the existing online service, saying “There is no question that interactive TV is going to be in a lot of homes within the next few years and I think we’re going to be very, very early in the process.”
“HSN has the ability to talk directly to 85 million consumers directly in their homes,” added Tom McInerney, chief finance officer. “That’s an amazingly powerful communication and selling device and one of our goals is figuring out how to leverage that.”
He said that the company expects interactive television to be in a lot of homes this year. “We want to be there. We’re going to experiment with it. We think it will provide both ease of ordering and also potentially a gateway to new and interesting ways of doing business through the television and internet channels. We’re excited about it but it’s very early.”
IAC/InteractiveCorp reported a loss in the last quarter of $45.9 million. Profit for the year fell slightly to $152 million.