led by video game veteran, Bruce Davis. Leading competitors to TV Guide On Screen included Prevue Guide and Starsight Telecast. The joint venture introduced an interactive program guide to the market in late 1995 in the General Instrument CFT2200 set top cable box. Telecommunications Inc, owner of Liberty Media, acquired United Video Satellite Group, owner of Prevue Guide, in 1995. TV Guide On Screen and Prevue Guide were later merged. TV Guide On Screen for digital cable set top boxes premiered in the DigiCable series of set top boxes from General Instrument shortly thereafter. See wiki on TV Guide for subsequent developments. Scientific Atlanta introduced the 8600X Advanced analog Set-top box in 1993 that included an interactive electronic program guide, downloadable software, 2-way communications, and pause/FF/REW for VCR-like viewing. Millions were deployed by Time Warner and other customers. Western Europe In Western Europe, 59 million television households were equipped with EPGs at the end of 2008, a penetration of 36% of all television households. The situation varies from country to country, depending on the status of digitization and the role of pay television and IPTV in each market. With Sky as an early mover and the BBC iPlayer and Virgin Media as ambitious followers, the United Kingdom is the most developed and innovative EPG market to date, with 96% of viewers having frequently used an EPG in 2010. Inview Technology is one of the UK's largest and oldest EPG producers, dating back to 1996 and currently in partnership with Humax and Skyworth. Scandinavia also is a highly innovative EPG market. Even in Italy, the EPG penetration is relatively high with 38%. In France, IPTV is the main driver of EPG developments. In contrast to many other European countries, Germany lags behind, due to a relatively slow digitization process and the minor role of pay television in that country. Current applications Interactive program guides are nearly ubiquitous in most broadcast media today. EPGs can be made available through television (on set-top boxes and all current digital TV receivers), mobile phones (particularly through smartphone apps), and on the Internet. Online TV Guides are becoming more ubiquitous, with over 7 million searches for "TV Guide" being logged each month on Google. For television, IPG support is built into almost all modern receivers for digital cable, digital satellite, and over-the-air digital broadcasting. They are also commonly featured in digital video recorders such as TiVo