Content Insider #959 – Checking
By Andy Marken – Andy@Markencom.com
“Hey, all I know about this is what I’ve seen on TV. You gotta talk me through this.” Burnham, “Panic Room,” Columbia Pictures, 2002.
For most folks, sitting down in front of their TV and watching something (anything) is just a way to relax, unwind, escape the chaos and stress around them.
Yeah, we know it’s getting harder and harder to do but with an estimated 5,500 movies, 2,700 non-fiction shows and tons of scripted/non-scripted shows produced around the globe, there has to be something that rings your chime.
Or you can watch sports of every flavor taking place … somewhere.
Or, if you want to get mad at your TV set, you can watch the news.
Oh heck, just ask your smart TV to pick something it would like you to watch so it tells its boss it did what it was designed to do.
Yeah, surprise, it tracks what you watch, when you watch it and … more. It’s been one of the industry’s worst kept secrets for years.
About the only people who didn’t know it back in 2017 were the US FTC and New Jersey Attorney General when they suddenly “discovered” Vizio was tracking and capturing data on what their 11M smart TV viewers were watching, when they were watching it and other trivial information and then selling it to advertising services, agencies, marketers and others.
It wasn’t that they were doing anything wrong, they probably didn’t have good/creative writers and legal folks to write their user terms of service and the benefits of their privacy policy for the viewer.
Either that or it was buried so far in the lengthy mouse type agreement which no one really reads anyway because they were sucking all the information from the stuff you were watching as well as watching everything else in the customer’s home.
Anyway, they were singled out from all the other smart TV folks and paid the two legal organizations $2.2M and promised they’d do better …
Now that Walmart owns them, they’re probably doing a much better job!
Back in the old linear TV days, what the cable folks didn’t gather much you know – specific days, times, channels, programs/shows that were hot/not so hot and that helped advertisers place their ads where they were most likely to reach their target customers.
Network and, station advertisers were fairly satisfied – it was the only game in town – and the home viewer went along with it because well … it was the only game in town.
But then, like a bolt of lightning, home internet service took off, and people could cut their cord (if they ever had a cord) and people were free to pick and choose what they sorta wanted and what they had to pay.
Then, along came Netflix and the rest of the streaming herd (Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Disney +, Paramount +, Peacock, Tubi, Pluto, NOW TV, iQIYI, ITV, Crave TV, Fetch TV, Airtel, Jio TV, Tencent, Huajiao and well 200+ show/movie services around the globe).
Suddenly households had a point of connection, and they had a choice.
But picking the services they wanted and then finding the shows became … a pain.
Don’t worry manufacturers had a solution … a smart TV.
In addition to giving folks direct access to the service(s) they wanted, they were going to make it even easier with a smart TV.
Connection is a snap, and they were going to give you even more support as a “free” service.
They would “monitor” the shows you watched, when you watched them, other stuff you did with your new smart screen and help you cut through all of the selection work and offer up specific show/program/movie options … just for you.
All you had to do was agree that you want them to meet your entertainment viewing needs and BAM! all this assistance would be at your beck and call.
It’s so compelling that last year more than 34 percent of global households (665M households) owned a smart TV; and this year, it’s projected that 50 percent of the 1.1B households will have at least one of the sets.
Samsung leads the pack with huge screens around the globe but they’re far from alone in the $293B market, which is expected to grow significantly over the next few years. That’s probably why China’s TCL and Hisense have intensified their competition to become major players in the arena.
And there are plenty of options (OLED, QLED, 4KHD screens) from the modest-size screens (36-50” plus) to large-area flat screens (80+ in) that are gaining in popularity as the quality of the viewing increases and room dominance becomes more important to some folks.
But with all of the sets, don’t bother reading all the thousands of words in the user agreement. Cripes it’s just the normal legal gobble de goop that the government makes them add. What it really means is that all this assistance will be free and instantly available to you.
It will all be right there because yes, the smart TV manufacturer is there to make you 100 percent happy with the big screen and all of its capabilities for as long as you’re going to hang onto it.
Yeah … it’s just too d**n much to keep track of your entertainment when there’s so much going on in your busy life.
No wonder nearly 90 percent of the smart TV owners say yes to the added services they provide to them.
They know that with the range of services folks now subscribe to (the average is 4) it is almost impossible to
keep track of what you want to watch and where it’s at so that extra service is almost worth having them watch
what you’re watching, when you’re watching it; your mood and well, more.
In fact, they are so customer focused that they’re going to help you make the central focus/control of everything you do and want to do while you’re home.
Oh yeah, the added AI capabilities will help you keep track of even more and take care of things you didn’t
even know you wanted to have taken care of.
No wonder nearly 90 percent of the smart TV owners say yes to the added services they provide to them.
The only problem is they all tend to use different operating systems.
The only problem is they all tend to use different operating systems.
The common TV OSs are Google TV, Android TV, webOS, tvOS, VIDAA OS, Titan OS, Tizen, Roku OS and
Fire TV that power smart TVs to provide the user interface app store, connectivity options and more.
Each has different features and capabilities but their goal is the same–to put the viewer in the center of the user experience so they can quickly connect to their favorite content with a minimum of frustration.
At the same time, they enable the user to centralize, control and manage all of their smart home products – video doorbells, alarm systems, temperature control, refrigerator/stove monitoring, and more that households want to add for their convenience.
Of course, they are always making advances in services, capabilities of their OS including major upgrades for newer, enhanced screens to encourage you to upgrade to newer, better flat screens.
The average consumer replaces their TV every 6.6 years according to research firm Circana. None of the
companies want to spend time, money and effort supporting old OSs because … it’s expensive.
Fortunately (and as a marketing differentiator), Hisense extendedit’s support range; and not to be outdone, Samsung extended it’s support to seven years. With all of the majors announcing various ranges of system support, that’s one concern off your worry list.
So, they’ll continue monitoring your viewing habits to help you and others.
Yeah, it’s not all about you.
All of that added support is to a little something called ACR (Automatic Content Recognition).
ACR tracks your viewing habits by taking screenshots every few seconds to identify what you’re watching from all of your sources.
They, in turn, use/sell all that information and all the collateral stuff they gather on you and your household to
advertisers to sharpen their ability in reaching, informing, convincing … you.
Yeah, it’s the kind of information/detail marketers have been hungering for so they can put their products/services in front of people who are most likely to buy them and not bother viewers who are least likely to make a purchase. Translation, they don’t want to waste money and can optimize their ads specifically to the viewer with uncanny accuracy.
Yes, they’ll be able to quickly and economically tailor ads with remarkable accuracy based on whether you watch conservative or liberal media, specific religious orientation and more with enhanced AI modification that will slice and dice your information to optimize the advertising.
Well yes, in the wrong hands, your sensitive information can be exploited or used and can even produce personal and household security risks including identity theft but jeezz, think of all of the “free service” it’s providing by saving you time, effort and frustration.
Okay, if you find the added features and capabilities a little too intrusive, there are ways to say “Nope, no way Jose, not me, not my household.”
Don’t like them having all of that information? No problem, there are options.
As you would expect, opting out of the smart TV most excellent feature is a little more difficult than saying yes to your set manufacturer’s added “Smart” services/capabilities and disabling data tracking features, but it’s not impossible.
Obviously, your big, beautiful screen manufacturer isn’t going to be a ton of help but the best guidelines we’ve seen recently are:
- Consumer Report – https://tinyurl.com/yzx93ks8
- New York Times – https://tinyurl.com/5xjatfrx
- ZDNet — https://tinyurl.com/4ne572rp
Okay, our guess is probably 20-25 percent of the folks who finally realize their smart TV is really, really smart but won’t wabt to disable the smarts.
One reason might be that they want their set manufacturer to earn a little more on the sale of the set they sold them.
Then it becomes it’s the purchase that keeps on giving.
Or they’d like to stop people from looking at them while they’re looking at the screen but it’s too much trouble.
Maybe they simply don’t mind sharing their personal information or like living on the edge.
Or they just glad someone actually pays attention to their wants and desires so they’re happy to share with the set manufacturer and all of their friends.
We understand … you’ve gotta be you.
Heck, you could be like us and actually don’t mind ads that really interest you.
But in the final analysis, we simply decided we didn’t want them to be that personal.
We still get a random assortment of ads with our ad-supported services and free supported services, so we still get a little break when the show’s/movie’s action gets really intense.
We also get a little satisfaction in knowing that the set manufacturer doesn’t have a continuing stream of ad profit from our streaming services on top of the profit they made when we purchased our 55″ OLED screen.
But knowing set manufacturers can’t monitor our other home products to make “helpful” upgrade suggestions is also sweet.
Sorry guys … that door is closed.
Cutting them off at the pass reminds us of what Meg said in Panic Room, “Because that’s what it’s going to come to.”
Andy Marken – andy@markencom.com – is an author of more than 900 articles on management, marketing, communications, industry trends in media & entertainment, consumer electronics, software, and applications. He is an internationally recognized marketing/communications consultant with a broad range of technical and industry expertise–especially in storage, storage management and film/video production fields. He also has an extended range of relationships with business, industry trade press, online media, and industry analysts/consultants.