This IDC study outlines the forces driving both the development of next-generation interactive program guides (IPGs) and an increasingly robust competitive environment for guides in the U.S. digital cable market. The proliferation of video on demand (VOD) and digital video recorders (DVRs) within the cable industry has focused new attention on the IPG. Once simply a means by which the viewer could navigate through the program listings for a couple hundred channels, the IPG is now a gateway for both broadcast and on-demand video content. In time, the guide will become a critical application in the digital home as set-top boxes (STBs) begin to offer multiroom DVR functionality and aggregate content from multiple sources. The key IPG vendors as well as the necessary feature sets are reviewed with an eye on how the guide landscape may change in the next 12 months.

"The transition to DVR set-top boxes is the catalyst that will usher in a new generation of interactive program guides," says Greg Ireland, senior analyst in IDC's Consumer Markets: Video program. "The IPG will evolve to be less a program guide and more a content guide as broadcast, on-demand, and Web content are seamlessly integrated into a single user interface."