The channel behind the TV channels you watch could be the most lucrative new advertising platform since the advent of the Web.

Last year, Macrovision acquired TV Guide magazine not so much for the magazine -- it ended up selling the publication arm for a single buck -- but for its interest in its interactive program guide partnerships with content providers like Comcast. With HDTV manufacturers at CES this year integrating their own program guides into their displays, Macrovision's investment is threatened with irrelevance in the coming years.

To try to thwart that possibility, the company this week is demonstrating what it's calling a "next-generation interactive program guide" (IPG), currently code-named "Neon." There's a good chance it'll end up being called TV Guide. But the idea of Neon is to enable the broadcasters themselves to contribute to the look and feel of what viewers see on their program guides, through an interactivity layer -- not unlike Blu-ray Java.

If broadcasters are responsible for the "value add" in IPGs, they could compel TV and set-top box manufacturers to go with Neon instead of their own home-grown concepts. ("Could," as in "maybe.")

So to sweeten the deal this week, Macrovision is showing off its partnership with none other than CBS, in a demo of how previews of hit shows such as CSI, with all its various cities, would appear in a next-gen IPG. Of course, the revenue stream for interactive content -- just as on the Internet -- comes from a particular source.

"Macrovision's next generation IPG provides advertisers with the opportunity to deliver targeted, graphically rich messages to a highly engaged audience," reads a white paper on the subject (PDF available here). "Consumers gain information about programs, products and services that align with their interests. The solution brings with it all the power and sophistication of Internet advertising: dynamic, targeted ad serving; interactive, graphical microsites; electronic lead generation (request for information); and sophisticated measurement tools."

Neon should become available in Macrovision-branded platforms and equipment, the company said today, in the second quarter of this year.