TELE-TV
Encyclopedia
TELE TV was a media and technology company formed by Bell Atlantic, NYNEX
NYNEX
NYNEX Corporation was a telephone company that served five New England states as well as most of New York state, except the Rochester area, from 1984 through 1997....

, Pacific Telesis
Pacific Telesis
Pacific Telesis Group was one of the seven Regional Bell Operating Companies, sometimes also referred to as "RBOCs" or "Baby Bells", created in 1983 in preparation of the breakup of AT&T as a holding company for Pacific Bell and Nevada Bell, Pacific Telesis International and several other...

, and Creative Artists Agency in February 1995. The company, based in Reston, Virginia
Reston, Virginia
Reston is a census-designated place in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, within the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. The population was 58,404, at the 2010 Census and 56,407 at the 2000 census...

, USA, set out to design a pioneering Interactive TV service with a set-top box
Set-top box
A set-top box or set-top unit is an information appliance device that generally contains a tuner and connects to a television set and an external source of signal, turning the signal into content which is then displayed on the television screen or other display device.-History:Before the...

 that would allow customers to view video on demand
Video on demand
Video on Demand or Audio and Video On Demand are systems which allow users to select and watch/listen to video or audio content on demand...

 over copper phone wires. Thomson Consumer Electronics was to build the set-top boxes. Ex-CBS Chief and current President of Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....

 Howard Stringer
Howard Stringer
Sir Howard Stringer is a Welsh-born American businessman and the chairman, president and CEO of Sony Corporation.-Personal life:...

 was hired as CEO, with ex-Fox
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...

 executive Sandy Grushow as President. Michael Ovitz
Michael Ovitz
Michael S. Ovitz is an American talent agent who co-founded Creative Artists Agency in 1975 and served as its chairman until 1995. Ovitz later served as President of the Walt Disney Company from October 1995 to January 1997....

, then head of CAA, was to play a role as deal-maker between Hollywood and the company. The company reportedly spent US$500 million before halting operations in early 1997, although some subscribers had services through the end of 2001.

Stargazer was the initial project, started in 1994 by Bell Atlantic's CEO Raymond W. Smith
Raymond W. Smith
Raymond W. Smith is currently the Chairman of Rothschild Continuation Investments, Founding Partner of Arlington Capital Partners, a private equity firm, and Chairman of Verizon Ventures.-Career:...

, a VOD (video on demand
Video on demand
Video on Demand or Audio and Video On Demand are systems which allow users to select and watch/listen to video or audio content on demand...

) market trial which successfully launched in 1995 - the world's first commercial VOD service - with 1,000 Virginia households. This pioneering interactive research, data and design became the foundation for the TELE TV commercial interactive TV service.

TELE TV was originally intended to feed programming content to the video systems the Baby Bells were planning in the early 1990s, but the venture lost much of its Bell company support when the 1996 Telecommunications Act distracted them with the possibility of a much more lucrative revenue stream - long-distance service.

The design and identity of the TELE TV service was completed by 1996. Creative Director Morgan Almeida and Executive Producer Peter Stonier had led global teams to brand the service and design graphical user interface
Graphical user interface
In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...

s for interactive program guides. These pioneering interfaces won several patents and numerous major interactive awards. Michael Bavaro
Michael Bavaro
Michael Bavaro is a filmmaker based in Manhattan. Born in 1959, he grew up in Milford, Massachusetts and graduated from Fitchburg State College in Fitchburg, Massachusetts with a B.S. degree in communications. In 1980 while at Fitchburg he produced a 16mm documentary film about his hometown of...

was the senior designer and developed the promotional Galaxy Channel. However the project was impacted by technical challenges, increasing costs, and unanticipated market changes - primarily that the Internet took off faster than fiber-optic TV systems—and so the three Baby Bells shut the venture down. They found entering the long distance market much more appealing than promoting interactive TV.

At the time CEO Ray Smith stated "Before the communications industry is through, your computer will speak, your TV will listen and your telephone will show you pictures."
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