Ingenious Media, a British media investment house, has bought a controlling stake in interactive television content producer Two-Way TV for £5.34 ($10.6) million. Two-Way TV makes interactive quiz show, gambling and SMS bolt-ons for many of the reality challenge TV shows that still prove so popular, including X-Factor and Dancing On Ice. The investment will be used to expand creative and production teams and to open a Los Angeles office in order to target the emerging US participatory TV segment. (Release).
The company will add a non-executive director from Ingenious. It last week struck a deal with Virgin Media to add its iTV game formats to the cable platform; it also sold its Ark iTV engine to Virgin, which had already been using the software across its interactive TV offerings for the last six years.