PC and TV Will Merge To Serve The Internet

WebTV Hyperlinks With TV Guide. WebTV and TV Guide

give users the unique ability to merge Internet surfing and

TV channel surfing.

Ray Van Eng (01/15/97)

WebTV and TV Guide have formed an alliance to provide consumers the unique ability to browse through TV listings online and with a flip of a button or two, could jump from surfing the Internet to watching TV programs on their television screens right away.

The TV Guide web site (www.tvguide.com) will be re-designed and renamed as TV Guide Entertainment Network with a heavy focus on offering entertainment value to consumers via four different sections at the web site: television, movies, music and sports. One of the complains that consumers have is that the web is just not as entertaining as the TV. However, WebTV and TV Guide hope to change all that.

TV Guide currently has 132 editions distributed throughout the U.S. All that content will be available at the new TV Guide site plus also a movie database, news on day time soap operas, quizzes and a chat/BBS area with entertainers and sports celebrities. All in all, there will be more than 200,000 pages.

The WebTV service is offered in the U.S. for $19.95 a month for unlimited access to the Internet after the purchase of a set-top box ($320) made by such makers as Sony, Philips and others. Steve Perlman, WebTV's president indicates that the price for the set-top boxes could drop to as low as $199 by the end of this year.

WebTV services is scheduled to be available in Canada and Japan in 1997.

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