The television as an app platform
A smart television is, in practice, a screen with a small computer inside. It connects to the internet, runs apps and plays video from services in much the same way a phone or a tablet does. Many people also reach the same apps through a separate streaming box, stick or games console connected to an older television.
The important shift is not the hardware but the way people choose what to watch. Broadcast television was organised around channels and schedules. A connected television is organised around a home screen of apps and rows of suggestions. That change has consequences for viewers, services and advertisers, and it is still developing.
Streaming apps on the big screen
Most major subscription services build apps for televisions, because the living room is where many people prefer to watch long-form material. A large screen suits films and series, and the viewing situation is often shared, with family or friends on the sofa.
A few points about how this works:
- Interface. Apps are designed for a remote control, with large tiles and simple navigation, rather than a touchscreen.
- Quality. Televisions can handle high video resolution, high dynamic range and surround sound, so the same service may look and sound better there than on a phone, subject to the plan and the connection.
- Delivery. Playback relies on the same streaming pipeline as other devices, including adaptive bitrate, so a slow home network can lower picture quality.
- Accounts. Profiles let several household members keep separate recommendations and watch history.
Not all televisions support every app or the newest codecs, and older models stop receiving updates at some point. That is one reason many households add an external streaming device, though this adds clutter and another remote.
Free ad-supported channels
A notable development in recent years is the growth of free ad-supported streaming television. Many connected TVs now include a guide of channels, some curated around a genre or a single show, that play continuously with advertising breaks and require no subscription. These are commonly called FAST channels, and their business logic is covered in the article on ad-supported streaming.
For viewers, the appeal is familiarity and low cost: you turn it on and something is playing, much like traditional television. For services, it provides a way to reach people who do not want another subscription. It also connects to the wider picture of streaming revenue, in which ad-supported and subscription approaches sit alongside each other.
What is less clear is how crowded this market will become and how many channels viewers will actually use. The selection can be large, and discovery on a long list of channels is its own challenge.
Voice, search and navigation
Typing a title with a remote is slow, so televisions have invested in alternatives. Voice search lets viewers say a title, an actor or a general request such as a genre. Some systems search across several apps at once, so the viewer does not need to know which service has the programme.
This approach has strengths and limits:
- It is quick for known titles and easy for people who find on-screen keyboards awkward.
- It works less well in noisy rooms or with unusual names.
- Results from different services may be ordered by commercial arrangements as well as relevance, which is hard for viewers to see.
- Voice features may involve audio being processed by the manufacturer, so privacy settings are worth reading.
Home screens increasingly rely on recommendation algorithms to decide which rows and tiles appear. This influences video discovery on the television as much as on any phone app, though in a living room the choice is often made by several people at once.
What changes for creators and publishers
Creators who built audiences on phone-based platforms increasingly find viewers watching their work on televisions, so framing, text size and sound mix have to hold up on a large screen. Small on-screen text that is readable on a phone may be unreadable from across a room, and the opposite is true of detail that disappears on a small display.
For publishers, the television is also a place where advertising is sold in ways more like traditional broadcasting. The mechanics behind this are discussed in guides to video advertising and ad auctions.
Content from traditional television has largely moved onto these apps too, which relates to the broader shift from broadcast television to streaming and to cord cutting.
Things that remain uncertain
- Fragmentation. With many services and channels, people may spend more time finding something than watching it. Whether aggregation will help or simply adds another layer is unclear. The industry context appears in the article on service fragmentation.
- Platform control. The company that makes the television or the operating system can influence what appears on the home screen. This could shape which services are visible, and regulators in some places have shown interest.
- Ad formats. Advertising on televisions may become more interactive or personalised; how audiences will respond is not known.
- Longevity of hardware. Televisions last many years while software changes quickly, so older sets can fall behind.
What to take from it
The living room remains the main place for shared, long-form viewing, and the television is increasingly a front end for internet video rather than a separate world. For viewers, practical steps include checking that the television or box is up to date, using profiles, and being aware that voice results and home-screen rows are not neutral lists. For producers, the sensible assumption is that work may well be watched from a sofa on a big screen as well as on a phone.