SelecTV, a brand for the cable industry has been launched to indicate the availability of interactive television delivered by digital cable nationwide.

This is a brand developed and managed by Canoe Ventures, an advanced digital television platform and services company, in concert with the Cable Television Advertising Bureau, the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing, Cable Television Laboratories, and the nation's leading MSOs, including Bright House Networks, Cablevision Systems (News - Alert) Corporation, Charter Communications, Comcast Corporation, Cox Communications, Inc., and Time Warner Cable, as well as national advertising and cable television programming partners.

'Canoe's mission is to advance the digital TV business,' Vicki Lins, CMO at Canoe Ventures said.

'Just as we're driving standardization of technologies to help scale a truly national ITV platform, we're leading the effort to promote wider adoption of our applications on top of this platform by ensuring a flexible yet consistent, quality user experience represented by the SelecTV brand,' Lins added.

Designed for use by both advertisers and content providers for interactivity, SelecTV can be licensed for use by certified cable television providers, their programming partners and advertisers.

'The process behind the development of the SelecTV brand is an example of how the cable industry collaborates to provide the best customer entertainment experience,' said Char Beales, president and chief executive officer at CTAM.

'We hope that SelecTV will come to signal for viewers the value of interactive television content, and therefore, encourage more viewer participation with ITV", Sean Cunningham, chief executive officer and president at CAB added.

Canoe Ventures claims to be working with cable companies, programmers and industry organizations on implementation guidelines, processes and solutions to establish ubiquity and standardization, while at the same time maintaining flexibility for how viewers experience ITV.

Bob Liodice, president and chief executive officer at the Association of National Advertisers also expressed his belief that Interactive television is a valuable marketing medium.

'The promise of ITV has been around for almost 20 years. We finally have the opportunity to engage consumers with brands and content in ways that are meaningful to both the advertiser AND the consumer. We applaud the cable industry for working together to develop SelecTV, a unified identity for simple interactivity, that will aid consumer awareness and add advertiser value,' Nancy Hill president and chief executive officer at the American Association of Advertising Agencies said.

'CableLabs (News - Alert) has been working to extend EBIF as a common technology platform to support interactive television across the cable industry,' said Paul Liao, president and chief executive officer at CableLabs said.

Kyle McSlarrow, president and chief executive officer, National Cable & Telecommunications Association mentioned that he is looking forward to this effort producing innovative tools for consumers.