A century after Scottish inventor John Logie Baird demonstrated the first mechanical television system, TVs face mounting competition from a much more recent invention: smartphones.<\/p>\n
But with a suite of new models boasting massive screens, richer imagery and artificial intelligence enhancements – on display this week at CES in Las Vegas – manufacturers do not plan on TVs being relegated to the dustbin of history.<\/p>\n
The proportion of daily viewing on TV sets declined from 61% at the start of 2017 to 48% late last year, according to market tracker Ampere Analysis.<\/p>\n
Smartphone viewing, meanwhile, nearly doubled over that same period to 21%.<\/p>\n
“This is the battle between big screens, which are traditionally for older people who grew up around televisions, and younger people who have either a phone, tablet, or laptop on which they’re doing their consumption,” said Patrick Horner, leader of TV research at Omdia.<\/p>\n
He said that in China, seen as a trendsetter in the global market, young consumers are shunning large-screen televisions in favour of smartphones or tablets.<\/p>\n
Around the world, television ownership is constant or declining, with average selling prices also holding steady or dropping, according to Horner.<\/p>\n
One way for TV makers to protect or increase revenue when unit sales do not rise is to get people to buy ever larger and smarter screens, at a higher price.<\/p>\n
TVs get personal<\/p>\n
Those massive screens once again starred at CES, with producers touting AI to personalise experiences and sharpen picture quality.<\/p>\n
Also in the spotlight was “Micro RGB” technology that dramatically ramps up picture quality using ultra-precise control of colours in LED displays.<\/p>\n
Samsung Electronics, the top TV seller for 20 consecutive years, unveiled what it billed as the world’s first 130-inch Micro RGB TV and spoke of packing AI into its products.<\/p>\n
“We will embed AI across every area, every product, and every service,” Samsung device experience division chief executive TM Roh said during a media event.<\/p>\n
Hisense, LG, Samsung, Sony, and TCL were also at CES.<\/p>\n
AI is being used to improve picture and sound quality, as well as help people find shows they want or ask questions about what they are seeing.<\/p>\n
“I am really curious to see if most brands at CES can actually prove their new AI devices live up to their claims,” said Forrester principal analyst Thomas Husson.<\/p>\n
Amazon vs Walmart<\/p>\n
Behind the scenes, e-commerce titans Amazon and Walmart are shaping the future of television as they vie for dominance – not in selling TVs, but in advertising and e-commerce.<\/p>\n
“This is really a knockdown, drag-out fight between Amazon.com and Walmart,” Horner told AFP.<\/p>\n
Walmart closed a $2.3 billion deal to buy TV maker Vizio in late 2024, as a strategic response to Amazon boosting sales through advertising on its Fire smart TVs and devices, often through its Prime Video streaming service.<\/p>\n
“Amazon was putting advertisements on television programming for things that Amazon sold,” Horner said.<\/p>\n
“So now Walmart is going to be putting advertisements on your television for things that Walmart sells.”<\/p>\n
And the profit margin on selling ads dwarfs the markup on selling TV hardware.<\/p>\n
Walmart is expected to sell more than a million of its “Onn” brand TVs monthly and use an operating system it acquired with Vizio to pump advertising to viewers.<\/p>\n
“Televisions are no longer about making profit from TV hardware,” Horner said. “They’re an ad delivery device being inserted into your living room to boost e-commerce sales.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A century after Scottish inventor John Logie Baird demonstrated the first mechanical television system, TVs face mounting competition…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":230581,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[61,60,202,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-230580","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mobile","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-mobile","11":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}