As Berners-Lee explains in the above video, the Web industry would descend into chaos without such a governing body, with competing companies and countries promoting their own proprietary languages and protocols to the detriment of consumers.

FORBES: Tim Berners-Lee Explains The Necessity Of Open Web Standards

Their joint research and development body, CableLabs, has written specifications for an operating system and chosen a number of software languages in which applications software for the boxes may be written.

ECONOMIST: Television and the Internet