Classic episodes of ITV's The Bill are to be screened over the internet in a revolutionary pay-per-view TV experiment, with Baywatch to follow if there is an appetite among viewers.
And the production company behind the show is also planning a new "whodunnit?" game with a prize draw for online fans.
Internet viewers will be invited to look out for clues in the show, which will be embedded into the plot. When they spot them they must press the red button to "collect" the clue and at the end of the programme will move into a separate game with successful players entered into a prize draw.
The first episode to be shown will be last year's fire when the Sun Hill police station went up in smoke, with one classic episode a month available on a pay-per-view basis to broadband subscribers.
And if it works other shows made by production company Fremantle Media, including classic episodes of Baywatch, could follow
Claire Tavernier, the head of interactive services at Fremantle, said the interactive game would keep viewers interested in the plot without taking them away from the programme for too long.
"It's a very fine line to make an interesting interactive addition without distracting viewers from the plot or taking them away from the broadcast stream," she said.
The idea has become viable because there are now more than 3 million broadband subscribers in the UK, creating a mass market for internet television.
The deal takes advantage of BT's recently announced Rich Media concept, which allows broadcasters and movie studios to deliver a huge library of television shows and films to broadband users at a quality equivalent to digital TV or DVD.
Although BT insisted last month it would never become a content provider to rival the BBC or BSkyB, it claimed its BT Rich Media products would make it much easier for broadcasters to offer pay-per-view services to subscribers.
ITV's previous attempts to produce interactive services around its programmes were until 2002 hamstrung by its involvement in ITV Digital, when shareholders Carlton and Granada refused to go on to the Sky Digital service.
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