Smart TV Searches Regularly Push Viewers in a Certain Direction: Analyst
Six TV operating systems dominate the U.S. connected TV marketplace, and their unified search recommendations "are anything but neutral," nScreenMedia's Colin Dixon wrote Monday. He said many homes have devices powered by multiple TV operating systems, and search and discovery…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
by viewers can be complicated given the systems' different interfaces. While a unified search function is gaining popularity, viewers can end up seeing very different results depending on which TV they are using, he said. Adding to the confusion is the fact that some subscription video-on-demand providers like Netflix don't let universal search find their content. Plus, TV operating systems are often biased toward their own services and certain third-party services, meaning the first option a system offers in a search "will usually be the option that benefits it the most," Dixon said.