Study Aims to Get Clearer Picture of Television's Future.

THE entire media and advertising industry is very curious about how the future of television is going to work. Televisual research and consulting firm ASI Entertainment in Glendale has partnered with TiVo and Nielsen Media Research to find out.

In the first study of its kind, the companies will join together to research how consumers use personal television services, which allow users to create their own television programming by recording numerous hours of programs onto a hard drive.

The technology has major implications for the media business. Will it make sense to advertise on television if viewers can simply delete or fast forward through commercials? How interactive will future TVs be, and how can content producers and advertisers best take advantage of that interactivity? These are the key issues under study.

"There's been a lot of pressure in the research business to figure this out. This is the first major attempt," said Bill Taylor, president and chief executive of ASI. "There's only been one tiny study of 50 viewers."

Six months ago, ASI teamed with TiVo, a leading provider of personal television services, to look at ways to study the issues. A few months later, they partnered with Nielsen for help with developing a sample group.

ASI will act as the "managing partner," Taylor said, because it will conduct the research and report the findings. Nielsen identified 1,500 households across the country that would be appropriate for the study, and TiVo provided the equipment and service for those homes.

"The objective is to make some sense of an ever-changing world," said ASI Executive Vice President Paul Lenburg.

The first stage of the research will simply track how consumers use the personal television technology, what features are most popular, etc. But future stages will give advertisers and programmers the ability to test the viability of new features.

Participating advertisers and entertainment companies are not being disclosed under terms of the agreement, but ASI counts as clients nearly all the major broadcast and cable networks, Hollywood studios and other media companies.

"If a viewer is watching television and they're interested in purchasing a car, they might see a car commercial and say, 'That's interesting,' touch a button, and maybe get a two-minute infomercial on the car, and potentially a Web-site link," Taylor said, as an example of services to be tested. "Then they can go back to regular television viewing where they stopped."

The 40-year-old ASI is one of the first research companies in the TV business. It has been conducting similar tests related to interactive television for the past several months.

Growing by Acquisition

While other Web companies were burning through their venture capital funding last year -- "There's always more around the corner, right?" -- one local company had longer-term plans.

Web hosting and application firm Affinity Internet Inc. received $60 million last October and still has a sizeable chunk of cash remaining, despite enormous growth and three recent acquisitions.

The El Segundo-based company had long-term plans in mind when it raised funds last fall.

"The plan for exactly what to spend it on, and when, was well in place before we raised the money," said John McIntyre, chairman and chief executive at Affinity. "Acquisitions were a key part in the beginning piece of what we wanted to do."

Affinity is one of a wide variety of Web hosting and applications companies targeting the ever-crucial small and medium-sized business market. Affinity decided it would look to buy companies with a specific, unique skill set or product needed by smaller companies, and then grow the various efforts under one roof.

McIntyre wouldn't specify how big Affinity's remaining war chest is, but said there is plenty of money remaining for more purchases. "We are looking at acquisitions and new sales channels for growth," McIntyre said.

Major Venture Deal

El Segundo-based iBenefits -- a local application service provider offering employee benefit management via the Web -- has raised $41 million in its third round of funding.

The deal coincided with iBenefits' merger with UltraLink, a 10-year-old health benefits management company. The company plans to use the new round to grow the roster of clients using its Web-based management services, while also growing the ranks of clients using Ultralink's paper-based health benefits management services.

"Our companies are similar, but it's just a blend of what's been done in the past with the way it'll be done in the future," said Jeff Graves, chief executive of iBenefits.

Since its founding, iBenefits has raised a total of $53 million.