One of the most important shifts enabled by digital technology is, of course, the shift to interactivity. To date, much of the discussion has been about shifting from broadcasting to narrow casting and may have missed the point. The future won’t be about “casting” at all.

In the future, it will be the customer, not the broadcaster, who will do the “casting”—the searching and accessing of multimedia databases for appropriate information, content, programming, and services. This may involve person-to-computer interaction when, for example, a customer accesses a database of television programs, encyclopedia entries, movie listings, or traffic reports. It could also be person-to-person, mediated through the computer; for example, a person sends a piece of video mail that is switched through and stored on a computer. By the end of the decade, consumers will have access to personalized, interactive on demand service, and random access to anything they want through digital radio and TV as well as through cable and computer networks.