Finally I plumped, in strict order, for Coronation Street, Inspector Morse, Minder, The Sweeney and A Touch of Frost. It was disappointing not to see Poirot among the nominated shows, but then maybe you can have too much detective drama.
Lack of camp Belgian detectives aside, this was a tidy use of the interactive option by ITV, which has offered interactive advertising to its customers since November 2003, when it ran its first interactive ads.
Last week, ITV joined with its rival broadcasters to devote a fair chunk of the Thinkbox Experience conference to the joys of interactive advertising.
In addition, one of the breakout sessions went into significant depth on the subject.
As well as satisfying the geek within's need to muck around with some technology, the session included a debate on interactive TV advertising (hosted by the Thinkbox board and the interactive ad specialist Weapon 7), which made some solid observations.
Creating good interactive TV comes down to five things: ("reconsider", "understand", "integrate", "research", "engage"). This can be crystallised in two thoughts - having a strong creative idea for the interactive element of the ad and working interactive into the process as early as possible.
Those in the know say too much last-minute action is still dogging interactive advertising, with many spots gaining an interactive element almost as an afterthought rather than as a key part of the campaign. But the advances are plain to see. Sky Interactive's selections of "interactive pick of the week" in 北京赛车pk10's media pages over the past few months have showcased examples of content that go beyond the call of duty (The Chemical Brothers' "Push the Button" activity and Virgin Trains' current campaign are two examples).
Playing with the controls after completing the ITV "top five", it was time to look in the interactive zone of the Virgin ad. The content worked my little grey cells (a prize quiz) and provided some entertaining sections so, in total, I must have engaged with the spot for more than two minutes.
So there is some small evidence that broadcasters and agencies are increasingly gearing up to offer a greater range of creative ideas and that the broadcasting technology is in place to support this. At last, interactive is looking like more than just an extra revenue stream for TV companies and evolving into one of the first platforms to combine response and entertainment successfully (and in a different way to the internet). If only ITV could turn back the clock and give us "Interactive Morse". If I could choose my own endings, I might get them right.