Interactive TV is its own genre
Branching narratives, chat overlays, channel points, real-time polls, second-screen voting, shoppable moments, AR overlays on live sports. Described one at a time, each reads as a product feature. Taken together, they're the early shape of a new genre with its own grammar and its own audience expectations. The platforms that ship interactive formats as "experiments" inside an otherwise linear lineup keep getting stuck on the same problem: the audience has no mental model for when to expect interactivity, so it goes underused. The platforms that commit to interactive as a programming pillar (Twitch being the longest-running example) build the audience habits that make the genre legible.
The showrunner role doesn't exist yet
A traditional TV showrunner owns creative direction. A traditional product manager owns the system. An interactive showrunner has to own both, plus the real-time data loop that tells you whether the interactivity is doing anything. None of the orgs I've worked inside had a role written that way when I joined. The successful interactive shows I've watched up close were all run by people who negotiated the scope of their job in real time, because nobody above them knew what to ask for. The practical move is to write the job description ahead of the hire, even if the role has to sit in two reporting lines.
Twitch is the longest-running experiment
Most of what I know about interactive TV comes from watching one specific platform operate the format at scale for a decade. Twitch has the most data on how interactivity changes viewer behavior (when chat works, when it doesn't, when channel points drive retention, when polls drive abandonment, when raids move audiences across the network, when subs convert). The lessons travel. Any streamer trying to add interactivity to a non-Twitch product can shortcut years of trial and error by studying what Twitch programmers already proved out. The lessons rarely come pre-packaged, so reading them out of the platform takes someone who's lived inside the operation.
