Abstract: A system and method are disclosed for preloading interactive content before it is to be displayed, thereby avoiding any unwanted delays due to download times. According to the invention, ITV data is embedded into the signal at some predetermined time before the corresponding segment will be broadcast. The ITV data is received by the ITV receiver, which then accesses an interactive site (web site or other server) and makes a request for the interactive content. The server determines the location of the content, and the content is then retrieved and transmitted to the ITV receiver. At the appropriate time (e.g., when the corresponding TV segment is being displayed), the content is displayed on the user's display, thereby reliably providing simultaneous display of the segment and corresponding interactive content.