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If some of Europe's leading children's television channels are to be believed, kids are voting overwhelmingly with their fingers in favour of more interactive TV content...

How fast the take-up of stand-alone interactive programmes and gaming develops is linked to how fast digital TV expands around Europe. Why Europe? For once, the Continent is way ahead of both the USA and Asia in terms of interactive TV technology and applications. The UK, the largest digital TV market in the world, is at the forefront of the drive. TV broadcasters like the BBC and Channel 4, and cable and satellite operators such as Sky (which reaches six million households) and Flextech, have already aggressively rolled out enhancements across their schedules.

France has its Canal satellite and TPS channels, while Spain and Italy are also established digital markets. In Europe, Germany is the only large country absent from the digital arena.

The main aim of TV operators and programme producers is more to increase ratings and increase viewer loyalty rather than improve young participants' minds. "What's driving this is money," Ferhan Cook President of Mediaplay International told AFP.

CBBC's Greg Childs believes the network's introduction of games and inter active story areas for pre-school children could stimulate colour and number skills. But in his view, the opportunities are "not so much educational as empowerment."

Just what empowerment will result in, no one knows. But the kids TV specialists in Cannes were agreed that all children, from tiny tots to teenagers, would leap at the chance to take up the interactive opportunities...