Betting on News Corporation Interactive Media, Gambling, and Global Information Flows

The desire by media companies in the United States to promote interactive television technologies despite the lack of success of previous interactive TV trials persists in the early twenty-first century. Multinational conglomerates are exploiting services like horse race wagering as a profitable platform for enticing users to sign up for interactive TV. News Corporation, for instance, offers interactive wagering services via the Television Games Network (TVG) in the United States, as well as services on its Sky Network in Australia and BSkyB in the United Kingdom, thus allowing wagering on races held across the world. The use of interactive wagering technology to create global information flows has proven highly successful for News Corp. Its role as part of conglomerates' global strategies to create and control interactive media users deserves serious attention and is examined in this article.