Pizza off your TV screen

WELLINGTON - The human propensity for sloth, pizza and interactive television technology could soon be generating extra revenue for New Zealand fast-food group Restaurant Brands Ltd.

The company has had preliminary talks with rival pay television operators Sky Network Television and TelstraSaturn about adding pizza ordering to the interactive television services they plan to introduce progressively this year, chief executive Jim Collier said yesterday.

"We are certainly ready from the technology point of view ... we are two and half times larger than our closest competitor and we have a [pizza] store within eight minutes' drive time of 90 per cent of New Zealand's population," Mr Collier said.

"We have some inbuilt advantages, which is good for us and good for the viewers of interactive. Pretty much anybody who orders can get one of our pizzas. We think it [interactive television] is a natural pizza business," he said.

The company hopes to have a trial in place by the end of the year.