Company Town : Sealey Bails Out of Interactive Network
Peter Sealey, the marketing wizard recruited to take charge of struggling Interactive Network Inc., is leaving the company, frustrated by delays in rolling out its TV game system nationally.
“The board and strategic investors have taken a more cautious approach to the national rollout, and that’s not what I was brought aboard to do,” he said. Sealey had joined the company only in January, after a high-powered marketing career at Coca-Cola and Columbia Pictures.
Interactive Network sells a device that allows viewers to play along with television sports and game shows at home. The company has lurched from financial infusion to financial infusion for the past four years, often appearing to be on the brink of collapse.
Last week, the firm announced it had received $42 million in new financing from a group of investors, including Tele-Communications Inc., NBC, Motorola, Sprint and Gannett. Up to that point, the company had raised about $85 million since its founding in 1988. Over the six-year period, it has reported only about $2 million in revenue.
Despite bold predictions at its founding that the firm would have millions of users by now, Interactive Network had just 5,100 subscribers at the end of 1993, the most recent figures available. Its game system is available in three markets--Sacramento, San Francisco/San Jose and Chicago.
Sealey’s departure was related to a switch in strategy that calls for putting the firm’s technology in cable TV boxes rather than a hand-held remote-control device marketed directly by Interactive Network.
The change, which is said to be supported by cable giant TCI, has slowed by at least a year plans for the big national marketing campaign that Sealey planned to lead.
A spokesperson for Digital Pictures Inc., a San Mateo interactive software company, said Sealey joined the firm as a consultant two weeks ago. His departure from Interactive Network is effective today.
Neither Interactive Network Chief Executive David Lockton nor a firm spokesman returned telephone calls.
